


lost and never found

by tciddaemina



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Aftermath of an offscreen character committing suicide, Alternate Universe, Aphenphosmphobia, BB is Lou, Cliff Unger is Lou's Father, M/M, Non-Consensual Touching, Panic Attacks, People respecting Sam's Personal Boundaries, Phobias, Sam's Bad Mental Health, Slow Burn, bts - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-22 12:16:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22249363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tciddaemina/pseuds/tciddaemina
Summary: Sam's been living day to day for a long time, waiting for the day that one of his deliveries will finally end his suffering once and for all. He doesn't realize this has changed until it's too late.(AU where Cliff Unger is not Sam's father.)
Relationships: Sam Porter Bridges/Clifford Unger
Comments: 17
Kudos: 116





	1. Order No.1

**Author's Note:**

> First things first, I started writing this before I finished playing the game - so before a lot of the backstory was revealed. Which, if you've played the game to the end, you know that things get a little bit wacky there and that some major shit is pulled. For the purposes of this story I've elected to ignore quite a bit of the end game plot twists. Sam's backstory with Bridget remains the same, but his parents were some other poor couple who no doubt suffered just as much. Cliff's story is unchanged, save that Lou is his child - with BB's being functionally immortal and unaging while within the pod.
> 
> Lou is also a boy, mostly just because me and my friend spent a long time calling Lou 'he' while we played the game and it feels odd to think of Lou as a girl now. 
> 
> IMPORTANT:  
> Sam's mental health is a major component of this story, dealing with aspects such as his touch-phobia, isolationist tendencies and disregard for his own wellbeing. Sam has major trauma and shitty self-care, which is addressed frequently and as part of his character arc. This includes depressive episodes, panic attacks, and self-negligent behavior fueled by suicidal thoughts. Please be aware of this when choosing to read this fic.
> 
> One of the tags for this fic warns for Non-Consensual Touching. This is not and will never be sexual in nature, but rather refers to Sam's Aphenphosmphobia being triggered by people coming into contact with him without his consent. Non-con is not something I will ever write. 
> 
> That being said, I hope you enjoy it. Please leave a comment!

Sam stares at his hands, his breathing just coming back down to steady levels. His heart is loud in his ears, drowning out the quiet murmur of the medical staff as they slowly gather the body onto a gurney, pulling the a white sheet up over her face.

There's still blood on his arms, black splatters painting fingerprints across his skin. He can still feel her desperate fingers clawing at his arms, the gleaming pallor to her face as she dragged herself closer. _"Please Sam-"_

Sam presses his face into his hands, sucking in another gasping breath. He can feel himself teetering on the edge of another spiral, darkness already spotting at the edge of his vision. He digs his fingers in, tangling them in his hair until the pressure pinches at his skull, the brief flares of pain distracting him from the phantom weight of Bridget's fingers on his arms. If he thinks about it he can still feel the drag of her nails against his skin, made rough by desperation, grabbing, dragging him towards-

"Sam." Die-Hardman says, and Sam jerks, looking up at him.

Die-Hardman reaches towards him and Sam flinches, slapping his hand away before his fingers can reach Sam's arm. "Don't touch me."

Die-Hardman draws back, nodding. Sam can't make out his expression through the mask, but his head is tilted towards the gurnery, watching as the medics tend to Bridget's bodies, slowly unhooking the last of the medical equipment from where it had been torn free in her fall, spilling black ooze everywhere.

"We need to talk." Die-Hardman says, and Sam lets his head fall back against the wall with a dull thud. His eyes slip shut for a second, exhausted, and then he nods.

"Yeah." Sam agrees, because he knows Die-Hardman, knows he's not going to let Sam go until he's said his piece. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, not looking at the body on the gurney, at the way the blood is starting to seep black through the sheet. He drags his hands across his face roughly, lets out a harsh breath. "Yeah, alright."

Die-Hardman nods sharply, and Sam drags himself off the ground, using the wall for support until he gets his feet under him. Its easier, facing away from the gurney, and Sam forces himself not to look back as he follows Die-Hardman out of the room. Medics rush past them in the hallway, gloves still slick with black blood, and Sam glues his eyes to Die-Hardman's back.

Sam barely looks at the room Die-Hardman leads him into, some tiny office just down the hall from the presidential suit, collapsing into the nearest chair. His hands shake, and he crosses his arms to still them, trying to ride out the shudders, and grits his teeth to catch his breath between his teeth, the flutter of it against the back of his throat threatening to drag him away again if he isn't careful. Tries not to feel sick at the thought of Bridget's body cooling in the next room.

He should never have come back.

Die-Hardman settles in the chair opposite, his eyes grim. He steeps his fingers together, and the intensity of his gaze makes Sam's skin crawl. Nothing good is going to come of this conversation, Sam can already tell.

"Things have changed since you left, Sam." Die-Hardman says. "The President has- _had_ known about her condition for quiet some time, but she keep holding on, waiting for you to come back. She wanted more than anything for you to come back, take up what you started."

"That part of my life is over." Sam says, not meeting Die-Hardman's eyes. He stares at his own hands instead, tense and white-knuckled, still streaked with black blood.

Bridget's blood.

"Be that as it may. America needs you more than ever. When you left, Amelie took up the expedition in your stead, leading the first wave West, setting up Knots all the way across America. But the situation's changed - the intensity of the Separatist attacks has increased, strandings are only getting more numerous, and without Amelie the roads are more dangerous than ever. People are starting to lose hope."

"So?" Sam says harshly, nails biting into his palms. "I'm a porter. It has nothing to do with me." 

"It has everything to do with you!" Die-Hardman snaps, slamming his hand down on the table. His chair shrieks back as he lurches to his feet, glaring down at Sam. "The President is _dead_. Amelie is stuck in the east, held hostage by a group of Separatists - everything we built is hanging by a thread. As soon as news gets out, BRIDGEs is finished!"

It feels like the air has left his lungs. There's a tension to his shoulders, brittle and tight, and it feels like one hard shake will break him entirely. Sam stands abruptly, glaring back at Die-Hardman. "I don't work for BRIDGEs." Sam says, voice sharp and low. "Find someone else to do your dirty work."

He turns, heading for the door, ignoring Die-Hardman's calls. "You don't know what you're doing! Sam! _Sam!_ It'll all be over! If you walk away, Amelie will _die._ "

Sam freezes, his hand on the door frame. Die-Hardman exhales roughly.

"You're her only hope, Sam. The Separatists have already had her for a year. They haven't hurt her yet, but its only a matter of time. Without you, she wont survive."

"That's low." Sam says, his voice a hoarse whisper. He could still leave, could still just walk away. He doesn't owe BRIDGEs anything. Hasn't spoken to Amelie in years. Hadn't spoken to Bridget since-

_("I can't anymore, Sam. You don't understand. You don't know what I see."_

_A kiss pressed into her hair, desperate and tender. "It'll be alright. I promise. It'll be alright."_

_A broken sob. "You don't understand.")_

Sam stares blankly at the carpet, takes a shuddering breath, hands clawed on the door frame. Pull yourself together. He turns to look at Die-Hardman, doesn't try to hide the hatred in his gaze. "Even for you, that's low."

"She's your sister." Is all Die-Hardman says.

Sam grits his teeth, jerks his gaze away from Die-Hardman violently and turns towards the door.

"Just think about it!" Die-Hardman calls after him, and Sam doesn't wait around to hear the rest of it, fleeing through the hallways. He doesn't stop until he's out of BRIDGEs, doesn't stop until he's standing outside the city gates, the fierce ocean wind nipping at his skin, dragging at his clothes, staring out over the barren hills and wasted spires of weathered rock. 

His bike is still parked just inside the city gates. He could take it, step on the gas and not stop until Capital Knot is a distant memory. America is a large place, plenty enough space to get lost in. Go far enough and he could drive for weeks without running into a settlement, could lose himself so thoroughly that even BRIDGEs is only a rumor whispered on the breeze.

The thought of it itches beneath his skin, a desperate urge to just go. To turn his face to the wind and never look back, let the calling voices die behind him.

It would be so easy.

God, he wants it so much.

BRIDGEs was always Bridget's child, her passion. She'd dedicated herself to getting it up and running, desperately looking for a way to hold America together even as it fractured between her hands. _Just you watch, Sam, it'll all be better. Once BRIDGEs is up and running, America will be whole again. We'll have a chance._

For a time, Sam had believed in it too. But that was before Lucy. Before the voidout at Roanoke.

_"Fuck."_ Sam hisses, glaring out at the wasteland. The worst thing is that he's actually considering it. Die-Hardman has always known just where to hit, just what to say it make it hurt, and his words worm around beneath Sam's skin, insistent and intrusive. When he left he swore he would never have anything to do with BRIDGEs again, swore he'd never meet Bridget again, and yet here he is, actually considering it.

"President's last wishes." Sam murmurs, his laugh bitter. He looks back over his shoulder at the towering walls of Capital Knot, a hulking construction of concrete and rusted steel stretchering across the horizon, BRIDGEs lurking deep inside like a spider, just waiting to spread its web wider. He rubs his hands over his face, turning back towards the city. "Fucking alright."

* * *

They get him to carry her body to the incinirator.

Sam meets Die-Hardman's eyes blankly as he outlines the mission. "It's of the utmost importance." Die-Hardman says, his voice low and urgent. "No one can know she's dead. If words get out everything will collapse. BRIDGEs wont have a chance. But we can't keep her here. It's too risky. And I'm sorry, Sam, I really am, but you're going to have to do it. We can't risk anyone else finding out. And with the road destroyed..."

He shouldn't be surprised. Should have known that this would be the first thing BRIDGEs would do. Its twisted, even for them.

They've wrapped up her body. Tucked away in a body-bag, she doesn't look like Bridget, doesn't look like Sam's mother, the last president of America. He wonders if she still has that expression, face twisted in tormented desperation, tears beading in her eyes even as she sets her jaw and crawls after him, stubborn as ever. He's glad he can't see her face. He doesn't want to know.

Sam doesn't say a word, just picks up the pack they've propped against the wall for him and shrugs it on. He grits his teeth as one of the technicians helps fix the body onto the back. They don't touch him, but just the feeling of them so close, the tug of their fingers on his pack as they tighten the buckles is enough to make his skin crawl. He stands, hauling himself upright, and steadies his breathing, wondering how someone who had looked so small and fragile on her deathbed could weigh so heavy on his shoulders.

Wonders if that's a metaphor.

Die-Hardman tries to say something, some throw away line to lessen his own guilt, make it all somehow better, but he quiets when Sam just looks at him, his expression blank, eyes cold. Die-Hardman doesn't say anything after that, just nods as Sam turns for the door. Sam leaves without another word, just puts one foot in front of the other, and tries not to think about black blood seeping down on the inside of the body bag.

There's a second package, smaller, and Sam looks at that instead, anything to keep from looking back at the bodybag. A BB pod, he notes idly, and then straps it onto his shoulder. The gates beep, scanners clearing him for exit, wall opening with the pixelated flash of energy cells disengaging, and Sam steps forth into the wilderness.

The city falls away around him, and Sam sets his eyes forward, settling his back tighter on his shoulders. There are clouds on the horizon, but Sam has dealt with worse odds. He steps off the ramp, the rubble of the ruined road crunching beneath his feet, and starts the trek.

* * *

Sam doesn't know how he should feel as he steps back and watches the fire consume Bridget's body. The incinerator is efficient, not a single hint of smoke escaping, but Sam still expects to smell burning. Expects to feel _something_ as he watches the only mother he ever knew vanish forever.

It's probably bad that he doesn't really feel anything. Probably says something about him that all he feels is empty, the space inside his chest long gone numb and cold. It's been a long time since he's been able to feel anything at all.

He watches until the last fires die out, until even the last flickering embers have burnt out, taking the last lingering remnants of Bridget with them. Then he turns around and walks back to the terminal, loading up the next delivery. The BB pod is so small, hardly worth the platform that rises to accept it, and Sam places it down on the platform even as the first patter of rain hits the windows.

His fingers still on the pod, a new chill on his skin. It creeps up his arm, the cold brush of ice beneath his skin, raising hairs and leaving his muscles tense and locked beneath it. His breath comes tight, and he doesn't have to look at the window to know there are fingerprints pressed to the glass.

Slowly, _slowly_ , he raises his hand to his mouth, muffling his already shallow breaths. His eyes are drawn to the window by a hideous magnetism, insides already going cold at the thought of what he'll see yet unable to resist the need to look.

He can only see them when they're close, and this one is still too far away. He'd almost think it wasn't there, save for the way the water warps on the window, winding tracks around invisible fingers, and the thundering dread that sinks deep into his gut, weighing heavy like stone in his belly.

Not just one then. The reaction is too strong.

No. There are more. Too many. Sam wonder who the fuck thought it would be a good ideal to build an incinerator right in the middle of a stranding. Hopes they suffered the consequences of it.

The windows rattle, grinding and cracking as an invisible weight shifts across their surface, and Sam forces himself to drag his eyes away. He's running out of time. There's no way of knowing how long the timefall will go on for and the stronger it gets the more the BTs will be able to range, their cords loosening in the heavy rain. They don't know he's here, but give it an hour or two and that will probably change.

No. He needs to go. And now, before the timefall gets any worse.

Sam looks down at the BB pod, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. That scientist, Deadman, had said it was dysfunctional but... Maybe. Just maybe. If it worked it would certainly raise his odds. Every so slowly, he picks up the BB pod, fastening it to the holster on his chest. He's never used one before, but most porter gear come equipped with the standard connection these days. He glances towards the windows as he plugs it in, the click and hiss of the connection establishing echoing loudly in the silent chamber.

His scanner comes to life, whirring and clicking, and Sam has to bite back a gasp at the sudden rush of feeling that comes spilling through the connection - all liquid warmth and tiny hands pressed against glass, eyes blinking open and turning uneeringly towards the window. He can feel the BB in the back of his mind, the hazy brush of underdeveloped thoughts, more vague sensations than any coherent string of thought.

Strangeness. Discomfort. A distinct feeling of _wrong_ from the direction of the BT. And beneath it all, another feeling, small and fleeting, gone before Sam can put his finger on it.

The odradek clicks once, blinking open and closed as Sam takes a step towards the door. It tracks the window, the BB's eyes not leaving the window for a second, and Sam concentrates on creeping across the room, stealing hushed breaths between his fingers, the scuff of his boots barely a murmur against the floor. His hood clicks up as he reaches the door, sensing the rain, visor sliding into place.

Sam goes to take another step forward, only for the odradek to swing around, blinking urgently directly ahead of him. His muscles seize, creeping dread returning like a tsunami that threatens to freeze his muscles in place. He scans the path ahead, eyes passing uselessly over the crumbling rode, the line perimeter scanners. Out of the corner of his eye he can just make out a dark haze, shifting - the one by the window.

He presses his hand tight over his mouth, breath already burning at the inside of his lungs, beating at the inside of his ribs and fighting a losing battle against the strangle hold of his breath. He takes another step forward. And another. Moves so slowly it feels like he isn't moving at all, holds his breath until dark spots threaten to dance across his vision, until the burning in his lungs traces a line of fire up the inside of his throat, cauterizing the inside of his mouth, and he's finally forced to take a breath.

The rain is thundering, insistent. It presses heavy against his shoulders, beating down around him. This bad and he wouldn't last more than a few seconds without the protection of his suit. Has seen what happens when people get caught out. There's nothing left to collect afterwards, just streaks of rust in the earth where whatever metal they'd been carrying has disintegrated.

The scanner swings back and forth, leading Sam along a knife-edge, winding twisting patterns through the facility like he's caught in a labyrinth, one false step from summoning every demon of the world on top of him. His heart thunders in his ears so loudly he wonder how the BTs don't hear it, the quiet gasps of breath he dares steal as echoing like the crash of cymbals.

He tries not to look at them, tries to keep his eyes on the ground, the freezing mud tugging at his boots with every step, hiding obstacles that would spell his doom. A single stumble and he's done for. He can see them in edge of his vision, barely more than a shadowy impression in the air, dangling limply in the rain, swaying back and forth as the wind tugs at them. The sight is enough to freeze the air in his lungs, and it takes everything Sam has to grit his teeth and force his breath to keep coming even.

There's a moment when Sam goes to take a step forward, only to be brought up short by a sudden wash of _wrong_ , freezing his foot in the air before it can hit the ground. He lets the scanner drag his eyes to the left and muffles a terrified gasp as it reveals a BT swaying just around the corner of the sensory tower, so close that Sam would have stepped right into it if he'd taken another step forward. The scanner is utterly motionless, not daring to even blink its lights for fear of altering the BT.

Sam takes a slow step backwards, then another, breath burning in his lungs, nails digging crescent marks into his cheeks with the force of his hand against his mouth. After a moment the feeling abates, and the scanner begins to blink its lights slowly again, tracking the BT as Sam edges around it with painstaking slowness.

The scanner is pointing behind him, the ridge of the valley rising up before him. Sam doesn't dare run, moving as slowly as he dares, terrified of any loose pebbles clattering beneath his feet. The odradek's blinking grows slower, less insistent with every step Sam takes, until his foot finally crests the ridge and the scanner turns its lights off entirely, clicking as it spins in a circle - dancing as a wave of relief and joyous delight washes through from his connection to the BB.

Sam's knees hit the ground, his hand clawing at his chest as he gasps desperately, heart thundering in his chest, his whole body shaking with the force of the adrenaline jolting through his veins. He'd kept his head, but now the terror is kicking in and all Sam can do is ride it out, shuddering and gasping on the crest of the valley. "Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck fuck_ -"

There's a clicking from his shoulder, the fingers of the scanner opening and closing, still spinning in happy circles, and Sam laughs despite himself, breathless and disbelieving, sinking down until the edge of his visor clacks against the ground. His legs shake, and he's not sure they could bear his weight if he tried, so he just kneels there, fingers digging into the mud, breathless with the sheer exhilaration of being alive.

There's a burble from within the pod, bubbles hitting the inside of the glass, and Sam looks down to find the BB staring up at him, its eyes too big for its tiny face. It's head is cocked, its eyes wide and unblinking. Sam lets out a ragged breath, letting out a choked laugh. "Guess it's good I didn't burn you after all."

The BB just blinks at him, and Sam huffs a laugh, sitting back on his heels and staring out over the valley. The rain is still coming down hard, and the walk back to Capital Knot will take hours still, but for now Sam just sits there and waits for the strength to return to his legs.


	2. Order No.4

"I don't think you understand." Deadman says. "The BB is dysfunctional. It's not fit for use. There are any number of problems that could arise - it could short right out in the field!"

Sam just looks at Die-Hardman, unphased. This isn't something he's willing to negotiate. "I'm taking the BB."

"I really can't advise it!" Deadman says, still flapping about uselessly on the periphery of the room. "It's BRIDGEs technology, and its already been approved for decommissioning. The paperwork has already been put through-"

Sam meets Die-Hardman's eyes straight on, not looking away even when the intensity becomes uncomfortable. Die-Hardman sighs, exhausted, and waves his hand. "It was just going to be destroyed anyway, right? Might as well get as much use out of it as we can."

"This is highly irregular-" Deadman starts, but Die-Hardman just holds up a hand impatiently, cutting him off.

"Just set him up with what needs for the BB. I'll put it in his expenses report." Die-Hardman says shortly, and Deadman deflates.

"Right. Right." He nods, turning back to the monitor and flicking through the holographic interface.

"I'm taking this to mean that you're signing on." Die-Hardman's says, gaze pinning sharply. Sam nods tightly, not saying more. Die-Hardman reaches into his pocket, tossing something onto the table. A pair of cuffs clatter to a stop before Sam, their lights blinking white, waiting to be activated. "You'll need these." Die-Hardman says. "They'll track your vitals, act as a interface - logging your orders and acting as a coms unit. Don't take them off."

Sam reaches for the cuffs, turning over them over in his hands. He doesn't bother with hesitation - he's already signed his soul over to BRIDGEs, what's a pair of manacles to make it official? The cuff closes over his wrists with a hiss, the band clicking and shifting as it sizes itself to his measurements. A moment later the lights blink blue, the display flickering to life.

_Welcome, Sam Porter Bridges. ID verified. Permissions initializing..._

"There!" Deadman says cheerfully. Sam's cuff blinks, announcing a new message. "I've sent you the manual on BB operation. It covers all the usual trouble shooting and maintenance requirements, but if you have any questions feel free to send me a message! BB-28 has a history of malfunctions, so I'm expecting a call fairly soon!"

Sam grunts, flicking open the file.

"Your first orders have already been logged." Die-Hardman says, and Sam glances up at him. Someones eager, huh. "Our first priority is linking up the Waystation and Distribution Center to the north. You head out tomorrow."

"Working me hard already?" Sam says dryly, not surprised in the least. Die-Hardman just shoots him a flat look and stands.

"All the relevant information should be in the mission files. I've authorized you for free pick from the quartermaster - take whatever you need." Die-Hardman says, giving them each one last nod before striding from the room. The door hisses shut behind him, and Deadman wastes no time in rounding on Sam.

"I don't believe I got to say it earlier, but I look forward to working with you, Sam! I've heard all about you." Deadman says, bustling closer and holding out one hand. Sam stares at it, tension crystallizing every line of his shoulders and back. "Oh!" Deadman says, dropping his hand and giving Sam an apologetic smile. "I forgot. Don't worry, Sam! I take no offense."

"Great." Sam says dryly, but Deadman just beams.

"Come on. Let me walk you through the BB manual." Deadman says, turning back to the terminal. Sam stares after him for a second, then sighs and steps over to meet him at the terminal.

"Alright. What have we got?"

* * *

9 hours later, Sam stands at the gates of Capital Knot city, his bike purring beneath him. The hills stretch before him, weathered and rugged, but Sam's been a riding these hills for years. It'll take more than a few rocks to throw him from his bike.

He can taste the salt in the air, the electric tang of fresh rainfall burning the back of his throat, the smog and smoke of the city already fading, snatched away by the wind. It tastes like freedom.

Sam glances down at the pod on his chest. Sensing his attention, the visor lifts - the black screen of the pod clearing, revealing the BB within. It peers up at him, wide eyes luminous in the glow of the orange lights of its pod. It looks unearthly, fragile and gaunt, and so very very small.

"Guess it's just you and me." Sam says. The BB sucks on the end of its thumb, blinking up with him, and Sam gets a wash of warmth from through the connection, the restless feeling of what he thinks might be excitement. Sam shoots it a long look. Just a piece of equipment huh?

"Alright then. Let's go." Sam says, and revs the bike, roaring down the embankment.

* * *

Even with the bike, it takes him three days to reach the Waystation north of Capital Knot, and another three weeks to connect Capital Knot Distribution Center and then the Wind Farm.

The first connection startles him - the first burst of lights spreading outwards, gravity loosing its hold on him for a moment as the network initializes, suspending him in the air as the holographic displays flickers around him, lines of code integrating themselves into the terminal and bringing the Knot to function. Sam's breath catches in his throat, and he pinwheels, trying desperately to keep his balance even as the floor falls away beneath him. It's only when he hears a quiet burble from his chest that he pauses, looking down to find the BB staring out at the lights with open fascination, its face pressed tight against the glass, tiny fingers making useless grabby motions towards towards the lights.

Caught up in watching it, Sam doesn't realize that the connection has finished until the gravity returns, dropping him. He lands clumsily, caught off guard, but manages to keep his feet, still staring down at the BB. As the lights vanish it makes a soft mou of sadness, curling back up.

Sam cant help it - he smiles.

More unsettling is the response of BRIDGEs. Amelie set up most of these stations on her way West, leaving behind scattered pockets of BRIDGEs members to man the new facilities. For some its been almost three years of waiting, and it shows. They're desperately glad to greet Sam. Watching him with open awe in their eyes, oh so fucking grateful. He doesn't know if its because of Amelie, because he's her brother, or because he was the one to connected the network, and he doesn't much care.

It's uncomfortable. Deeply so. And Sam rarely lingers after he's connected the center, collecting any outgoing deliveries and then quickly heading on his way.

Sam isn't a hero, and he doesn't want to be one.

So he focuses on delivering the packages, ignoring the rest. Deliveries he can manage. Long days on the back of his bike, valleys and rivers blurring behind him, quiet hours waiting out the timefall in whatever shelter he can scrounge up - that he can manage. 

Some porters lament the wasteland. They look out on the ruined face of the land, ravaged by the timefall, the strandings, and they despair. Sam can understand.

There's a certain sense of melancholy that comes with staring out over the land, tracing the scars of what were once roads, treading paths through the ruins of what were once towns and cities, now broken and bent under the weight of the timefall. There are so many craters, hollow spaces in the earth where life once lived. They pit the roadsides, carve vast lakes into the earth. The smallest can take hours to cross, the biggest weeks.

It's impossible to stand among it and not be painfully aware of your own mortality, to not feel intimately the fragility and minuteness of human existence. The Death Stranding came crashing over what was once civilization like a tsunami, and now whats left is slowly disappearing, eaten away a little more by every ebbing wave. One day they will vanish entirely, and nothing will be left to ever show they existed.

Maybe its strange, but Sam feels freer out here than he ever did in any city. There is a sense of liberation that comes with being completely and utterly alone. Perhaps he takes comfort in the ravaged face of the land, the knowledge that in the end everything is fleeting. Or perhaps its just that its only when you're out here, well and truly away from any settlement, that you can see just how brutally life struggles against its fate, plants clawing life around scattered roads, reaching futility for the sky, only to die and live and die again the next time it rains. Birds sing, feathers dark in the air, only to hide at the first shadow across the sun - braving death every time they take flight just for the chance to live for one more day.

Death scours the land, but life always finds a way.

No, Sam thinks. He doesn't mind the wasteland at all.

* * *

Some deliveries are worse than others.

Sam crouches low, peering through the cracked window and watching the MULE wander closer. He presses his hand to the top of the pod, trying to calm the anxiety he can feel from the BB. It had been bad luck, wandering into a MULE patrol, and even with his bike he hadn't been able to lose them completely, their humvee more than able to keep up with him on the rugged terrain. He'd been forced to veer into the ruins of an old settlement, hoping to lose them amongst the crumbling buildings.

No such luck, but at least they can't ping him this far outside their perimeter. If they want to find him they'll have to do it the good old fashioned way.

The MULE turns, and Sam ducks back from the window as the MULE's head swings his way, scanning the buildings. There's at least four of them, maybe more if they called in reinforcements - too many eyes to sneak past, and trying to pick them off one by one risks alerting the others. Sam is good, but even he can't fight four fully armed MULEs by himself.

The BB shifts uncomfortably in its pod, a distinct feeling of unease coming over them, and Sam isn't surprised when the MULE swears a moment later, shouting something into their comms and quickly making a break back for their truck as the first patters of rain begin to fall. The BB's discomfort only grows, and Sam doesn't hesitate, darting out into the rain and making a run for it, putting on as much speed as he can even as the rain starts to beat heavier around him.

It's still light now, but it won't remain so for now, and Sam can already feel the intensity of the stranding here. Old settlements are always rife with BTs, and this settlement borders on the size of a small town. He spotted a cave mouth on the way here, maybe ten minutes away if he runs the whole way. If he can get there-

Sam's blood runs cold, the hairs on his arms rising.

The scanner flashes once, a damning orange, and then moves no more. It's so close he can see it. A dark shape, hazy and indistinct, just to his left. There's a splash of tar across the ground, black fingers spilling across the fractured concrete, slowly coming closer.

He doesn't breath. Doesn't dare even raise his hand to cover his mouth.

Ever so slowly, Sam raises his foot, takes a step back. One step, two, three-

_Screeee_

His boot hit something, the rusted sign shrieks as it drags against the concrete. There's a splash of tar, the BT lunging in his direction. Sam doesn't look back. He just runs.

The BB calls warning, the odradek flicking back and forth, clicking and flashing, only to whirl around a second later and do it all over again. Sam follows it without a second's hesitation, throwing himself in whichever direction the BB points him and sprinting.

Fingers brush the back of his leg, claws fluttering against the leg of his trousers, and Sam throws himself forward, vaulting over a rusted car. It shrieks behind him, groaning beneath the weight of the BT, black marks painted across its surface, but Sam is already gone, hitting the ground running.

All of a sudden the BB jerks around, its eyes fixing a spot in the air ahead of them. The scanner flares orange, and Sam skids to a stop even as a black figure manifests in the air before him, already reaching. He throws himself to the side, just avoiding reaching fingers, and runs and runs and _runs_ -

He doesn't stop until his legs are ready to give out beneath him, his hands shaking so hard that he threatens to lose control of himself entirely. The ruined bridge is a paltry shelter, but it stops the worst of the rainfall and after a cautious moment the scanner retracts, the BB sending him a warm wash of assurance, speckled with glittering joy.

Sam's legs give out, his breath coming hot and tight in his chest. He can feel the weight of it pressing down on him, tightening around his ribs, black spots already dancing around the corners of his vision. He screws his eyes shut, pressing his head to the dirt, and tries to breath through the hitching shudders that wrack his chest. Tries not to drown as the darkness encroaches in on him, the thought of long fingers closing around his ankle enough to set him off another round of breathless wheezing.

It takes him a long time to get his breathing under control. Too long. He presses his hands into the dirt, riding out the last few jerky gasps. He lies there for a second, his forehead pressed to the dirt, waiting for pounding of his heart to return to within the delicate cage of his ribs.

He pushes himself up slowly, his hands shaking so hard that he almost slips, and looks down to find the BB staring up at him through the pod, hand pressed to the glass. Its concern is a gentle flutter against the back of Sam's thoughts, tender and scared.

Sam lets his head fall forward, resting his forehead against the glass. "Thanks." He murmurs.

The odradek twirls, fingers clacking happily, and Sam smiles. 

* * *

He makes it to the preppers. Eventually.

One of them try to thank him after he connects the network, reaching forward to shake his hand, and Sam shies away. They stop reaching for him, looking a bit awkward, but still smile and thank him. "I know it's not much." They say, their cheeks dusted with the faint hint of embarrassment. "But we've got a spare room that you could use for the night."

Their partner nods. "Really. We can't repay you for what you've done for us." She says, her tone uncomfortably sincere.

Sam just shrugs, not meeting their eyes. "I've got a parcel for you, too." He says, shrugging his pack off. It hits the ground heavy, even with him lowering it down, and Sam rolls his shoulders, gritting his teeth against the raw ache that flares across his shoulders. Deliveries this big wear down on him, the straps of his backpack rubbing burns into his skin.

"Shit, that looks rough. How do you even carry that?" The prepper says, staring at the cargo disbelievingly.

"I rode most of the way." Sam says, just loading onto the terminal with a grunt. The two preppers had come out to meet them, but neither looks like they have the muscle to lift the package, let along carry it back down into their bunker. "Just had to walk the last stretch of the valley."

"That's almost four hours." The woman says, shooting Sam a startled look, and Sam just shrugs.

"Oh. Um, right. Let me show you the way to the guest room." The other prepper says. "I'm Amari by the way, and this is Marianne. Do you need a medic kit or anything? We have some dinner leftover..."

"I'll take care of that." Marianne says, hand coming to rest of Amari's shoulder for a second. "You show him to the room."

Amari shoots Marianne a soft look, then turns back to Sam. They turn, the door sliding open before them with a low hiss. "This way. It's not much, but there's a bed and a bathroom. If you need anything else let us know."

Sam nods tensely, shooting a sideways look at the pair of them. The kindness is surprising, especially for a pair of preppers, and Sam isn't sure what to make of it. He dips his head awkwardly. "Thanks."

The preppers don't bother him much, just set him up in his room and leave him be. Sam is glad for it. They don't seem a bad pair, but he doesn't think he could bear to spend an hour trading uncomfortable small talk, and he's glad they don't seem to expect him too. Instead there's a knock on his door half an hour in, the soft chime of Marianne's voice coming a moment later. "I've got some food for you here, alright if I come in?"

Sam opens the door, quickly stepping aside before Marianne can get too close, and leans back against the wall as Marianne comes in, setting a plate on the table. It mostly looks like root vegetables and some other greenery - an eclectic mix of fruit and vegetables. Standard prepper fare, nutritious and easy to grow underground.

"Thanks." Sam says. "I had some rations, you didn't need to-"

Marianne shrugs. "Amari keeps a garden. And anyway, its the least we can do. We've been waiting on that shipment for years now, but most porters refused to touch it. It was too heavy, and we live pretty far from the beaten track."

"It's my job." Sam says simply.

Marianne smiles, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear. "Maybe, but it makes all the difference to Amari and I. Any sort of medicine is expensive, and shipments like that are just MULE-bait."

"Is it that important?" Sam asks. He makes a habit of not looking through his clients parcels, save the most basic hazard assessment. Amari and Marianne's package had been marked as medication, heat sensitive, and Sam hadn't looked further.

"Some would say not." Marianne says. "We would have survived without it, but- It's about more than just surviving sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah." Sam says, letting his head fall back against the wall. "I can understand that."

Marianne gathers up the tray, tucking it beneath her arm. "I'll let you sleep. I don't know when you plan to head off but.... Amari and I usually eat at 7, so feel free to join us." With that she excuses herself, sliding the door shut quietly behind her and leaving Sam alone in the silence of the room once more.

The food is... good. Better than the rations he usually eats. Amari had somehow managed to grow citrus, and it adds a dazzling sparkle to the dish, sweet and acidic. Sam can't remember the last time he'd eaten oranges. Years ago, probably, back in-

He sets down the fork, no longer hungry. He stares at the plate for a long minute. Sam forces himself to choke down the rest, swallowing around the taste of ash in the back of his throat, and then takes a shower. He stands under the water, letting it wash away the grime of the road, and runs his hands roughly through his hair, trying to pretend the water washes away everything else too, stripping away bad memories and blood alike.

It doesn't work, and Sam collapses onto the bed without bothering to dry his hair, exhausted. He makes a token effort to tend to his shoulders, rubbing disinfectant into the raw skin and cleaning it up with a balm. BRIDGEs has been working hard, sending him on deliveries up and down the coast, hooking up every Knot and prepper they can reach. The last three days have been an uphill slog, spending dawn till dusk on his bike, sleeping on bare rock every night, only to follow it up with a hike halfway up a mountain through treacherously rocky terrain. The thought of having to get up tomorrow and do it all again sort of makes him want ot curl up and die.

The preppers have left him with a thick down blanket, and Sam drags it over his aching shoulders, burying his face in the pillow and letting the scent of dust and freshly washed linen wash over him.

He sleeps.

* * *

Lucy's hand is warm in his own, warm and soft, her hair spilling over his shoulder where she rests her head. Sam rests his chin on her head. She glances up, smiling, and then looks back down, flipping the next page of her book. "You always watch me when I read." She says.

Sam shrugs, careful not to dislodge her. "It's interesting." He can tell where she's up to in a book based on the expression on her face. The slight dent in her lip where she bites it when things get tense and exciting, the furrow between her brows when things take a turn for the worse. Sam was never much interested in reading himself, but her face tells a story in itself, and Sam will never tire of watching it.

Her fingers tighten around his, gentle at first, but after a moment her nails begin to dig into his kin, the pressure growing painful. Sam looks down and-

There's tar on his hand, and black mark that keeps growing larger, spilling across his skin as the claws dig deeper. Another hand closes around his ankle, clawed fingers crushing until the bones ache and grate beneath his skin, only for another to join it, seizing his knee, his arm, his shoulder-

Sam struggles, turning to Lucy, only for his breath to freeze in his lungs. The BT leans over him, it's face a black smear of shifting chiral, so close Sam can almost taste the stray particles. The very air around it vibrates.

_I told you._ The BT says, a wide gash opening across its face. Inside he can see rows of pearly white teeth, a soft pink tongue. Lucy's voice is still so gentle, even humming from between the creatures lips. _I told you. But you never listened. You never understood. I told you-_

The hands seize him, tar pooling around his legs. They drag him down, thick liquid spilling up over his shoulders, creeping up his neck. Sam gasps, stealing one last breath just before the tar spills over his face. He thrashes, trying to jerk free, but the hands just drag him deeper.

_Why weren't you there?_ Lucy whispers.

_I waited, but you never came. Why weren't you there? Why weren't you there-_

Sam gasps. Drowns.

* * *

Sam jerks up, his chest heavy, a cold sweat pouring down his back. His hair hangs in his eyes, swaying with the force of his shaking shoulders. He curls in on himself, one hand clutched to his chest, trying to calm his aching heart.

He cant still feel Lucy's hands in his own, can still feel the BT's dragging him down. His skin prickles, threatening to raise another mark, and Sam wonders what it's all for. Lucy's voice echo's in ears, joining a choir of voices. Bridget murmurs in his ear, voice wet and bubbling around her own sickness. _Don't go, Sam. Please, we need you here-_

Sam shakes his head, sucking in a harsh breath, and drops his head down onto his knees. Sometimes he wonders. Wonders if any of this, BRIDGEs and the Knots and the goddamn chiral network, is any use at all. Whether he'll spend his entire life walking himself into the ground for nothing. Wonders if he should just give up and end it, spare everyone the trouble.

There's a low noise from across the room, and Sam slowly drags his head up, looking over. The BB peers at him from within its pod, its eyes wide, its tiny face creased in a frown.

"Scared you, huh?" Sam says, rubbing his face roughly and letting out a heavy exhale. "It's okay. I'm fine."

The BB just blinks at him, still pressed close against the glass, and after another moment Sam forces himself to roll off the bed and pad over. He presses his finger to the glass, giving it just enough of a prod to set it rocking, and watches as the BB flips in its pod, trying to maintain its view of Sam.

"Guess you don't get nightmares." Sam says quietly. He hopes the BB doesn't get nightmares, that its memories aren't full of bloodshed and torment. Anything else seems too cruel to bear. 

The BB watches him for a long while longer, but Sam just sits there, prodding the pod again whenever its rocking starts to slow, and eventually the BB's eyes start to grow heavy lidded, its blinks growing longer. Finally it closes its eyes, yawning enormously and raising its hand to suck on his thumb - only for its eyes to pop open again a second later to check on Sam one last time.

Sam leans back against the wall, watching the BB sleep. Its so small, just a little slip of a thing, and Sam doesn't know how something so fragile can even bear to exist. He wonders how much the BB truly understands - more than Deadman thinks, Sam is sure. The BB turns over in its sleep, floating gentle in his pod.

"Sleep well, kid." Sam murmurs.

He should sleep. He has a long day tomorrow, and an even longer day waiting after that. He doesn't. Instead he stays there, watching the BB sleep. The orange glow of the pod seems gentler somehow than the dim space of the bed, and watching the BB Sam can almost pretend he doesn't still feel the phantom touch of fingers on his skin.

It's a long night.


	3. Order No.10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I did sort of merge the new chapter onto the end of chapter 3, mostly because I wasn't satisfied with the length of either. Sorry for any confusion my dudes. The next chapter will probably be up tomorrow, there's just a couple of things left to fix and I'm too dead to do it right now. Enjoy the first supercell event tho.

Sam leaves Amari and Marianne's place early the next morning, waiting just long enough to greet them both in the morning and ask if they have any outgoing deliveries.

"Mm. I think we have a few." Amari says, dragging their fingers through their tangled hair. They look loose and sleepy, pillow creases still impressed into their face.

"Two to Capital Knot." Marianne agrees, looking far more put together. Her hair is tied back, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. "Though if you're passing by the Distribution Center, we might have another. Benjamin's a friend of ours - he's a brilliant baker, and I wouldn't mind sending him some fruit if you're heading that way."

Sam nods. "It's on the way."

Marianne smiles. "Great. I'll put them together for you. Sit down, have some food, they should be ready by the time you're done."

* * *

Sam avoids the Knots as much as he can, taking missions out to preppers in the back of beyond with the excuse of expanding the chiral network just to avoid having to spend an extra day at the Knots. People watch him there, their eyes too knowing, too kind.

They smile when they see him, call him Sam like they've been friends for years, like they owe him some great debt. Sam can't stand it.

He delivers the oranges to Hancock and then leaves again before the man can do more than throw a few words of thanks at him. He doesn't need thanks. Doesn't want it. He's not BRIDGEs hero. He's not their friend.

Sam is a porter, nothing more, nothing less, and he has no interest in pretending to be anything else. 

* * *

Even with his bike, deliveries sometimes require him to spend days on end walking, etching winding paths up treacherous mountain sides, around following rivers for days to find a safe place to cross, and more than once Sam finds himself humming a lullaby beneath his breath, no clue when he even started.

There are images sometimes, flashes of colour and blurred sensation, there and gone again in and instant as the connection washes over him. Rare at first, but as the weeks pass they start to grow more frequent. Or maybe Sam's just getting better at understanding them. A room with white walls, washed orange through the fluid of the pod. A man, smiling, humming that same familiar lullaby, the gently sway of the pod being rocked.

Sometimes he hears the murmur of a voice, so gentle. Whispering about the sun and stars, about the first time mankind set foot on the moon, and at the end of it the gentle press of fingers against the glass. _We'll get you there one day, BB, I promise._

Sam blinks, the last vestiges of the vision falling away, and looks down at BB. "Someone must have really loved you once, huh?" He says, and wonders how it had come about, how BB had ended up with him when there was someone out there who had once held him so tenderly.

Sams fingers linger on the pod even as he looks up. It had probably ended badly. Most things did these days. He glances down at the pod one last time, finds BB curled up, sucking on its thumb sleepily, and smiles despite himself.

"Alright." Sam says. "Back on the road I guess."

* * *

BRIDGES sends him back and forth across the coast, hooking up every Knot and isolated prepper they can make contact with. Sam still isn't entirely sure what the point of the chiral network is, save to make the world better in some unquantifiable way. Connection, that's what BRIDGEs is all about, bringing everyone back together under a common thread.

The old guard, they talk about America like its everything, a sharp edge of fevered longing in their voices whenever they talk about it. Sam was born after America was dead and gone, and he can't much see the point in missing that, by all accounts, was pretty shit to begin with. Reading the old files is like stepping into an alien land, and Sam wonders what it would mean to exist in a world where people walk around with guns loaded, so lax with the thought of killing someone.

These days even MULEs don't carry guns, don't dare use the sort of lethal force that could result in a voidout. These days you kill someone and you run the risk of them taking you and everyone you love with them.

No. Sam doesn't miss America, doesn't want it back, but he does the deliveries all the same, pushing BRIDGEs agenda with every order he completes. He tells himself the thought doesn't bother him, but then its not as if BRIDGEs is even trying to pretend he's not just a dog on the end of their leash, collar pulled tight after the last time he tried to run away.

* * *

Many prepper shelters are built in the ruins of older towns, constructed in the first years of the timefall by a few far-sighted individuals. Sometimes they hold entire communities, old cave systems dug out and outfitted to support old settlements, their construction funded the government and whatever charitable bastards happened to live nearby.

Those sorts of shelters are rare. Over the decades most have been converted to Knots and walled cities, their ranks swelling beyond the initial shelters as refugees fled across the landscape from the latest voidout. Sam can count on one hand the number of these small shelters on the east coast, gatherings of families that have been living together for decades, becoming as closely knit as family in their own right.

Roanoke had been one of them, back in the day. Made up of no less than eight families, with a complex that spanned caverns, long corridors of stone and steel built deep into the earth. They'd had gardens, a school, even a trained doctor, everything a settlement their size could ever dream of. None of that had saved them when the voidout happened.

That was the problem with shelters. The more people, the higher the risk of someone croaking it. Fail to discover the body for a couple of days and, well. Nobody ever bothered to send people to look for survivors after a voidout anymore. It just wasn't worth the effort.

Maybe that's why so many preppers lived in isolation, hiding away in scattered ones and twos. Less risk that way. Less chance that whatever you have is valuable enough to attract someone who might try and take it. MULEs don't generally bother with invasions, too high a risk of someone dying, but its become something of a trend these days with the Separatists. They're out to kill everyone anyway, so as far as they're concerned getting a bit of loot out of it only sweetens the deal.

That said, it takes a certain sort of person to live out by themselves in the middle of nowhere. There's something about locking yourself underground for years, decades, without ever coming into contact with another person. Comms don't count. It was something Lucy used to talk about a lot - the importance of touch, the comfort that came from warmth, someones hands in yours.

_Humans are social animals._ She used to say, cupping her hands around her mug as she peered down at the page, a tiny crease in the furrow of her brow as she thought. She hated the taste, but she'd said the smell of coffee helped her think. _It's the way we evolved, working together to overcome a world where everything else has the advantage. Communication, cooperation - it's what let us rule the world._

"Fat lot of good it does us now." Sam mutters bitterly, hoisting his pack a little higher and gritting his teeth against the pain as the straps settle on his shoulder, digging into already raw skin. BB makes a curious noise, glancing up at him and Sam huffs and shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Just talking to myself."

BB blinks at him then wriggled back around to peer at the daisies sprouting on the side of the path, all white petals and thick, velvet leaves. They spring from the stone with an almost reckless abandon, their roots clinging to every meager crevice, flowering brightly even surrounded by the bitter chill of old snow frozen to ice glittering on the mountainside. Small streams wind their way down, carrying melt down into the valley where it'll eventually join the river and freezing Sam's ankles whenever he's forced to dip a boot in to reach the next section of the path.

He can feel BB's delight at the sight of them, the curious joy that comes from their yellow faces, standing out like bright spots against the grey slate of the hillside. "They're called mountain daisies." Sam says. "I think. Or something like that- _Fuck._ "

Sam glares down at the stream, icy water now up to his shin, and grits his teeth. He hauls himself carefully around the next boulder, not bothering to try dry his boots. No doubt he'll get wet again soon enough and there's no use wasting a new pair of boots on something as minor as this.

Sam heaves a ragged sigh, shooting a glowering look up the mountain, then hoists his pack higher on his shoulders once again and keeps walking.

* * *

The prepper shouts at him.

Sam delivers the parcel mutely as the hologram paces in front of him, the man's grizzled old face wrinkled and wide-eyed, his warbling old voice barely pausing for breath. "- think they'd have learned after the last time it happened! Well I wont have it! You can go tell your BRIDGEs to go fuck themselves. I don't want their network! I don't need it!"

The terminal whirs, clicking as the panel slides back into the wall and takes the parcel with it. His comm flashes a second later with a record of the delivery, and Sam stares at it dully as he waits for the prepper to finish reviewing the delivery. The man doesn't stop raving for a single second. He can feel BB's anxiety whenever the man's voice rises too high, loud and angry, and he grits his teeth.

"It's fine." The man snaps, giving the parcel a long and suspicious look. "Now get off my property. If you loiter about or try anything funny I'll set the turrets on you."

Sam doesn't bother to reply, hauling his pack back onto his shoulders and leaving without another word. It took him six hours to scale the mountain, and it'll no doubt take that much again going back down. He won't make it before nightfall, and trying to keep going after dark is just asking to break his neck.

Instead he picks his way carefully down the path, wary of loose rocks and sudden drops, and holes up beneath the steep face of an overhand when the light finally begins to fade. It's not much of a shelter, little more than a cliff-face, but the angle of it is enough to keep the timefall from hitting him directly if it rains and that's better than a lot of places Sam has had to sleep.

Sam plants his back against the rock face, pack pressed tightly against his side, and gnaws at his dry ration bars. Tasteless, with the chemical hint of too much processing, but they keep his belly full and give him enough energy to keep going. BB shifts in his pod, restless, until Sam lays a hand on top of the pod. He peers up at Sam.

"Some people are just assholes." Sam explains, shrugging. He finishes his ration bar with one last bite, washing it down with some water. His head falls back against the rockwall, staring out over the valley. "Don't take it personally. The world's ending, has been for a while. It's enough to make anyone go off the rails."

He glances down at BB, smile wry and bitter. "Guess you chose a shit time to be born."

BB burbles happily, bubbles rising and bursting as they hit the top of his pod. Sam sighs, smiling despite himself. He can feel BB's amusement, the warm flutter of his thoughts, vague and wordless, yet still so light, so curious. "Or maybe not. You're an optimist, kid. Figure the world probably needs a few more like you."

* * *

No matter how many times he runs into BTs, he doesn't think he'll get used to it.

Sam does his best to avoid strandings, but sometimes it can't he helped. Sometimes they stretch too vast, and new ones keep popping up, isolated BTs lingering where travelers got unlucky on the road. The bike is a risk - invaluable, but a liability as soon as there are clouds on the horizon. Speed is nice, but not when the noise is enough to alert every BT within a mile radius.

But then, by the time it starts raining enough for the BTs to start to show Sam's usually already under cover. Better to wait it out, no matter how many hours it takes.

A BT only ever got close enough to touch him once, but Sam can still remember the feeling of tar in his lungs, of thrashing uselessly through the darkness as hands haul him deeper. He'd gotten free, just, but he hadn't been able to look at deep water for two years afterwards without his heart pounding in his chest and a cold sweat running down his back.

Now Sam grits his teeth, wading deeper. It's cold, the tug of the current heavy, but its not as thick as tar and that helps. BB giggles against his chest, the waterline splashing against the surface of his pod, and it Sam almost manages a smile for a second. 

Capital Knot better damn appreciate the package he's bringing them.

* * *

There's a storm brewing over Capital Knot. It hangs heavy over the city, dark and pregnant with the threat of rain. Sam roars to a stop just outside the city gates, pausing just long enough for the scanners to verify his ID and disengage the force-field.

There's an intensity to the air, ozone sizzling on the tip of his tongue, that lasts right through Sam making the delivery. He peeks up at the sky on his way out, heading for the barracks - the force-fields keep the worst of the timefall off the city, but he doesn't much fancy being caught out in the storm regardless. There's a crack from overhead, the world flashing white for a second as lightening streaks across the sky, and Sam sighs.

He'll just have to make a break for it.

Sam sets off at a jog, breathlessly glad that his pack is empty for once. He doesn't think he could bear another hour of hauling cargo on his already abused shoulders right now. His cuff crackles, but the connection must be on the fritz, because for a moment all Sam gets it static.

_"-zzt. Am- Ick up, Sam-"_

He raises the cuff, engages the connection. "Yeah? What is it?"

 _"Sam! Thank goodness!"_ Deadman cries. _"There's something going on. The chiral densities are off the charts, and they keep rising-"_

The wind picks up around him, whipping his hair into his face, and Sam frowns. "That sounds serious." He says. "Any idea what's causing it? Where's it localized?"

 _"Where's it- You don't understand, Sam! It's right on top of us! The chiral matter is somehow converging in the supercell-"_ Deadman says urgently, and Sam freezes. The wind is howling around him, tugging at his clothes, the force of it sending him staggering, and it's only growing stronger. There's a groan from behind him, and Sam turns just in time to see one of the BRIDGEs trucks being dragging across the road, its wheels rising off the ground. 

"Oh _fuck_." Sam steps back, even as the wind threatens to sweep him off his feet. The supercell is closer than ever, dark whirls of crackling cloud pressing up against the edge of the barrier, and as Sam watches the first truck rises into the air, crashing into the barrier and sending a shockwave riding out across the energy cells, raining down blue sparks.

The force-field doesn't survive the second collision, the energy cells collapsing beneath the force of it. The barrier gives way entirely. The rain comes howling in, flung at blistering speed by the wind, and Sam flinches, expecting the acid burn of timefall, only to blink, startled, when the water is just water. "What-"

He doesn't get much further than that. The world howls, a gust of wind hitting him right across the front and sending him flying. He has single moment of awareness, staring down at the concrete and watching it grow distant, and then the storm takes him.

* * *

Sam hits the ground hard and spends a moment gasping, curling into himself as his back throbs, painful and electric, the air driven from his lungs.

Everything is so loud - low rumbles in the distance, interspersed with the piercing chatter of gunfire. Sam rolls, dragging himself through the mud and rolling up against a low wall even as an explosion goes off in the distance, everything briefly lighting up with a flare of brutal orange. BB lets out a startle cry, whimpering, and Sam stops, frozen, staring at a foreign field, soldiers in uniform ducking behind cover beneath bursts of scattered gunfire, only to spring back a moment later and send back volleys of their own.

No. Not soldiers, Sam realizes, catching sight of one's face, the blood freezing in his veins. BTs, or something much like them. Their faces are skeletal, the flesh long rotted away, leaving tar soaked bone exposed to the open air. Sam can feel them around them, dragging like cold fingers down his spine. There must be dozens, hundreds-

A smattering of gunfire hits some sand bags a couple of feet about where Sam is crouched. One of the BT's jerks, the bullets carving a line across its' chest, only for the wound to explode in a glowing burst of chiral matter, rising from it's bodies like sparks from a fire. It slumps to the ground motionless, only to twitch a moment later, embers gathering around it once more as it lunges for its gun and stands to rejoin the fight.

This isn't Capital Knot. Isn't anywhere even remotely near the East Coast. Sam very much doubts its even America. The supercell, whatever it was, had transported him somewhere, and it doesn't take a genius to look at the dead whales laying mountainous across the battlefield and put the dots together.

He's on a Beach - the question is who's?

BB is wailing, every crackling burst of gunfire setting off another wave of startled fear, and Sam presses his hands to the glass, making a low noise. "Shh. It's going to be okay. Everything's okay-"

Another bomb goes off down the to his left, closer now, and Sam feels BB flinch at the sudden boom. Whatever it is that's setting off the bombs is getting closer. They need to move. He scans the Beach, ducking lower to the ground as another burst of gunfire rends the air. For a moment there's a pause in the gunfire, a sudden ringing silence. Sam leaps up, keeping low to the ground as he dashes for the next piece of cover, ducking down behind a beached whale even as another squad of BTs rounds the corner, taking fire only feet from where he'd been hiding.

Sam throws himself into a trench, keeping a concerned eye on BB, only to have to duck behind a pile of crates as a BT comes charging down the trench towards him. It passes right by him, not even sparing him a glance, erupting up out of the trench and joining the firefight above. Sam stares after it for a second, completely thrown.

It didn't see him.

Whatever it was that had the BTs fighting here, it concentrated their attention on each other. Sam doubts it even knew he was there at all. Sam shoots a cautious look over his shoulder, heading deeper into the trenches. But that doesn't mean he's safe. The Beach is a warzone, and even with the BTs fighting each other there were far too many bullets and bombs being thrown about - any one of them of them would be enough to take him out.

Sam crouches at the end of the next corner, peering out into the next trench. They must stretch like a maze through the battlefield, because Sam can spot at least three separate join tunnels, two open to the air, and the third heading deeper underground.

There's a low murmur in the back of his mind, indistinct, slowly growing louder. An ominous hum slowly drawing itself into words.

_I know you're there. I can feel you, scurrying about. What are you?_

Closer, almost whispered in his ear. **_What are you?_**

Sam tenses, shooting a glance over his shoulder. Nothing. An anxious feeling from BB distracts him, restlessness washing through the connection, but when Sam looks down BB isn't looking at him, his eyes turned outwards, watching the trenches. The odradek clicks faintly over Sam's shoulder, slow growing faster. Whatever it is, it's coming closer.

The voice again, louder now. _Theta maneuver. Find it._

Sam has a split second to make a decision. The underground tunnel looks tempting, less chance of stray fire, but the lights of his scanner will give him away in a second. He races down the left trench instead, pausing every few seconds, straining to hear anything over the over cacophony of the battle and the pounding of his own heart. The odradek continues to blink, pointing deeper into the trenches, and Sam veers away from it.

He needs to get off this Beach. Doesn't know how. Every time he'd visited a Beach he'd been repatriating, but he's not dead, or at least he's pretty certain that he's not, so how-

There's a clatter from ahead of him, and Sam ducks back around a corner even as a BT wanders down the trench before him. It... looks different than the others, the ones Sam has seen fighting on the battlefield above. Feels different. There's a red glow to it, flames licking up the inside of its skull, and for all that it wanders the trenches it's not fighting like the rest, it's gun held at the ready.

No, Sam realizes with a cold feeling, it's not fighting because its looking for someone. _Him._

It's turns away from him, heading down another back, and Sam backtracks, creeping back around the corner the way he'd come. He makes it another dozen feet down another trench before spotting another one - this one too close to avoid. He presses himself back behind a pile of crates, hands reaching uselessly for his belt.

Nobody carries guns these days, too dangerous when any potential victim can cause a stranding, and Sam doesn't think he'd know how to use one even if he did have one. His fingers close around his strand, tugging the rope free from his belt, and Sam hopes desperately that he isn't making a terrible mistake.

He presses his back to the wall, holds his breath. Waits.

Sam's cover is going to vanish in another second, maybe less, as soon as it advances enough that the crates no longer hide him. He needs to act before that, catch it off guard before it can set of the alarm. The footsteps grow louder, squelching in the mud, the BT drawing closer.

The rim of it's helmet crests the edge of Sam's hiding place and Sam moves. He kicks out, driving hit foot into the back of its knee, lunging forward and snarling his strand around its torso even as it jerks and moves to raise its gun. It throws its weight back, slamming into him, and Sam stumbles back a step. He throws himself back at it. Another shove and it goes down, Sam driving his knee into the small of its back and quickly winding the strand around its hands-

There's a click from behind him, up on the bank leading up to the battlefield.

Sam turns and finds a pistol aimed directly at his head, and holding it-

There's an instant where everything goes still, the sounds of the battlefield distant and inconsequential. Sam's breath catches in his throat. He's seen that face before, has seen this man smile and hum lullabies, has seen him grin as he flicks through the pages of a book, pointing out every planet in the solar system one by one. The man - whoever, _whatever_ \- he is hasn't changed a bit, his hair still that same sandy grey, a slight shadow of stubble on his jaw, tired lines creasing the skin around his eyes. There's tar dripping down his face, fresh and wet, pooling beneath his eyes and cutting tracks down his face. There's no smile on his face now, no gentleness in his eyes, and somehow it looks profoundly wrong.

It happens in a split second. The man cocks his gun at Sam, Sam stares up at him, frozen, and then there's a crash from over the trench, a new wave of soldiers spilling over the battlefield towards them. One raises its' gun, its' aim trained on the man's back, and Sam reacts without thinking.

The man goes down beneath him. Sam gets a glimpse of the man's eyes widening, his mouth opening to say something, even as pain explodes across his shoulder and-

Sam lands heavily on the concrete outside the base at Capital Knot, the supercell already fading away into nothing above them. He makes a pained noise, raising his hand to his shoulder, and hisses when his hand comes away red, quickly pressing his hand down again.

He lies there for a second, slumped against his pack, blood spilling between his fingers onto the concrete. BB is squalling in his pod, voice high and terrified, and Sam can feel the feedback through the connection, knows BB is feeling his pain.

Sam leans back, letting his head fall back against the frame of his pack, and sighs. "Well fuck."

* * *

"According to the logs, you never left - or if you did it was for such as short amount of time that the camera's couldn't pick it up." Deadman says, dropping the last of the tools on the tray with a quiet clatter. The clear metal is beaded with dark drops of blood.

"I was _there_." Sam snaps. "It felt real. Hell, it certainly hurt enough."

Deadman makes a noise, not dismissing just... thoughtful. "Whatever you saw, it was real enough to leave one of these in you." He says, setting down a small clear pottle on the table. A twisted piece of metal sits within it, the water slowly going dark as wisps of blood fade into the water.

Sam blinks. "Is that-

"An 8mm Mauser. A type of ammunition used commonly in the First World War, yes." Deadman says. "And the very same bullet that I just dug out of your shoulder. There's no doubt you went somewhere, the question is where? And how did it happen so quickly?"

"It looked like a Beach." Sam admits, leaning back, only to hiss when the movement puts pressure on his shoulder. Deadman had stitched it up, but there's still a hole right through the meat of his shoulder, and it'll take more than a day or two to heal, even with Deadman's lab at his disposal.

"Interesting." Deadman says, turning to tap at his terminal. Images fly across the interface, text scrolling past too fast to read as Deadman scours his files. "There have been accounts of people travelling to Beaches - a side-effect of DOOMs, its said. No proper studies have ever been done how it works, and BRIDGEs only knows of one individual confirmed to be able to do it."

"Who?" Sam asks, intent.

"Fragile Seydoux." Deadman says. "She's a courier that works out of Port Knot City. I'll look into this, see what I can find, but if you're really interested in finding answers you should go talk to her."

Sam scrubbed his hands across his face. Of course things wouldn't be that easy. "So what do I do now?" He asks, exhausted.

Deadman shrugs. "Same as you've always done. Delivery parcels, expand the network. Likelihood is soon as you're healed Die-Hardman will be sending you that way anyway."

"Right." Sam agreed, exhausted. He couldn't tell whether the feeling churning in hit guts was anticipation or dread, or such a second hand nausea from the pain meds. Knowing his luck it was probably all three. 


	4. Order No.14

Deadman marks him for only light duties for the next four days, leaving him with far too many empty hours in the day. Capital Knot stretches around him, vast and bustling, and Sam confines himself to the BRIDGEs base in a futile attempt to keep himself from crawling out of his skin. Being within the city, so close to so many other people, makes his breath come short, and the thought of heading into the actual city itself is enough to make him feel physically nauseous.

Mostly Sam sleeps, catching up for all those weeks on the road, the raw burns across his shoulders slowly fading away beneath the daily salve treatments. He flicks through the database, scrolling through files and histories and scientific reports, playing albums of music at random just to get a taste of what the chiral network has already amassed. But eventually his thoughts stray back to the Beach and the man on the battlefield.

The memory of it sits uneasily with Sam. He can't stop thinking about what is must take for someone's Beach to even look like that. Every time he's repatriated his own Beach has been empty, and yet the man's was teeming with- people? BTs? Sam doesn't know. But every single one of them had been fighting and dying, only to get up again and do it all over again, caught in an endless cycle of violence and death.

It's enough to make him wonder if he'd somehow stumbled into the man's own personal purgatory.

Sam slowly unwinds the bandages on his shoulder, hissing at the tight twinge. The wound looks better - puckered and red, but it no longer threatens to start bleeding when he moved his shoulder. Hopefully well past any risk of infection. He presses another medicine pouch onto the skin, watching it warm and melts into place, sealing the wound with a healing accelerant, and then winds a fresh set of bandages around it.

BB's watching him from the cradle again and Sam stares back at him, thoughtful. There had been a moment on the Beach when the man's eyes had flickered down, looking at BB. Sam can't get it out of his head - the look in his eyes, cold, but there had been something there. Confusion? Anguish?

Sam scrubbed his hands over his face, frustrated. He was getting too torn up over this. He has no way of knowing if he'd seen anything at all, or if he's simply reading into it too much. "Bet _you_ know who that was." Sam glancing at BB, but BB just blinks at him.

Sam slumps back down onto the bed, exhaling roughly. "What am I doing. Talking to a goddamn BB." Maybe he has spent too many days staring at the walls of his room, if its getting to him this much.

Tomorrow, Sam decides. Tomorrow he'll see about taking a delivery. Something that will take him to Port Knot.

Sam turns over, goes to sleep.

* * *

Sam doesn't sleep well.

Sam rarely sleeps well these days, but the combination of his aching shoulder and troubled thoughts lend to a particular cocktail of nightmares that leave him shaking awake at 3am, biting back a noise against the very real pain in his shoulder. He can still feel the grip of phantom hands on his skin, can still see those dark eyes widening in surprise, tar spilling down his face like tears.

Travelling is hard, worse when there's a hole in him right where the strap of his pack should be lying. Even with the lightest delivery he can find it's still a torment, the smallest weight enough to make him grit his teeth and bite back a pained noise, and Sam compromises by taking a delivery to the Waystation - the way clear enough he can make it the whole way on his bike, strapping the parcel directly to his bike. Maybe before he would have taken extra parcels anyway, just said fuck it, but BB gets upset when Sam's shoulder plays up and Sam hates hearing the kid cry.

Three days there, three days back, and by the end of Sam feels a little less like he's going to shatter to pieces as soon as he tries to put the smallest bit of weight on his shoulders. Die-Hardman meets him in the hanger, and Sam doesn't even bother being surprised, his bike rumbling to a halt a few feet from Die-Hardman.

"Port Knot?" Sam says. It's not quite a question - more just a statement of fact. Die-Hardman makes no effort to hide what he wants, and it makes him predictable to a fault.

"Port Knot." Die-Hardman nods.

Sam rolls his shoulder, testing the sting of it - barely noticeable. Healed enough to support proper cargo. He jerks his head in a nod. "Alright. What's the cargo?"

"An aid package, to be delivered to Victor Frank. He'll see it properly distributed." Die-Hardman says, and even as he speaks Sam's cuff lights up, the new orders slotting into place on the interface. "Everything you need to know's in the file, but-"

"But?" Sam asks tensely, eyes narrowing.

Die-Hardman nods towards his bike. "You wont be able get that through. There was a road leading there once, but a voidout a few years back blew it out - now its just part of the lake. The only other way through is through some valleys."

"I'm getting the sense that's not all." Sam says.

"The whole place is a stranding. Part of the exodus that got wiped out by the early timefalls. The zone stretches for miles, through a whole set of canyons." Die-Hardman says grimly, and Sam whistles lowly. No wonder Die-Hardman's here telling him personally. BRIDGEs first proper suicide mission. Sam's surprised it took them so long.

There's a reason no one else has connected the network despite it being three years since Amelie left.

Die-Hardman's still watching, a cautious edge to his gaze, and Sam knows he's waiting for Sam to say something, try and refuse maybe. Any sane porter would.

But...

Sam abandoned sane six years ago, when Roanoke vanished off the map and took everything Sam loved with it. He's made a name taking deliveries no once else will touch, walking through strandings and timefall alike, MULEs and mountain ranges, just to delivery a single parcel. And he'll be damned if he's going to chicken out now.

"Alright." Sam says instead, nodding. The engine roars to life below him. "Get together everything you want taken that way. I leave tomorrow."

Die-Hardman doesn't look stunned, he doesn't have the capacity for it, but his eyes linger on Sam for just a second longer than they should before he nods jerkily, stepping aside to make room for Sam to ride past. "We'll be ready." Die-Hardman says, and Sam doesn't bother to linger after that, just kicking his bike off, heading for the elevator without a backwards glance.

* * *

Two weeks to reach the Distribution Center, and another three beyond that to reach Port Knot. It's the longest delivery BRIDGEs has ever sent him on, and the most dangerous.

The first two weeks pass without incident. Sam's traveled these roads before, knows where the worst strandings are, knows where the MULEs around here like to hide their scanners. He avoids both without issue, braving the craggy foot of the hills to keep out of the worst of it. It's a dangerous road on his bike, littered with rocks and sudden drops, and navigating it requires hair-trigger reflexes, but Sam's earned his living on the back of his bike. He trusts it, trusts himself on it.

He spends his nights in caves and rock shelters - anywhere that would spare him the mortal touch of a sudden shower of rainfall. It's not the most comfortable sleeping, and probably watched by MULEs as well, but rock shelters are the lifeblood of porters and over the decades they've ensured there are more than a few of them dotted across the landscape, even if it meant digging them out themselves.

Every now and then he finds things carved into the walls of these shelters. Notes from other porters, warning of the road ahead, scribbled blessings of safe passage - scrawled in charcoal and chalk, anything the porters had on hand. Sam adds his own warnings as best he can, describing a change in the edge of the MULE zone, the latest stranding that had appeared along the road. It's not much, but it's something. Porters have to look out for each other. No one else will.

In one cave he finds a tiny shrine, clumsily rendered drawings showing a shining sun, the rays of its light reaching all the way to the dusty floor of the cave. A mismatched collection of rain dolls hang in front of it, each made from different fabrics - some skillfully sewn, others little more than a scrap of fabric tied with wire. Each and every one a prayer to banish the rain.

Sam spends the night in that cave, sleeping curled against the far wall, his strand clutched safely in one hand and the other resting on the top of BB's pod.

The next day when he leaves there's another rain doll hanging with the rest.

* * *

He leaves his bike at the Distribution Center, waving off their concerned look and hesitant attempt to offer him a car instead. "Are you sure?" Hancock asks, chewing his lip nervously. "It's weeks on foot, and the timefall-"

Sam shoots him a flat look, and Hancock sighs, running a hand roughly through his hair. "You don't know what you're getting into, man. Nobody's ever managed to get through there. I know porters will go anywhere but..."

"It's my job." Sam says and Hancock shoots him a sad look, more than little pitying. Even the everyday grunts of BRIDGEs know this is a suicide mission.

"Be careful out there." Hancock says finally, defeated. "You did a solid to Amari and Marianne. You're a good dude. I'd hate to see you die, man."

"I'm always careful." Sam says, hoisting his pack higher onto his shoulders. BB's emotions are warm and jumbled through the connection, tinged with a wordless excitement, and behind it, a careful murmur at the very edge of Sam's conscious mind - the lullaby.

The look Hancock sends him says clearly that he very much doubts it.

"See you next time." Sam nods, turning for the hanger doors, and Hancock just sighs.

"Yeah, man, see you next time." Hancock agrees, then, quieter. "I hope."

* * *

The days crawl by. The road west of the Distribution Center is unfamiliar terrain and Sam covers only a fraction of the distance he day that he would with his bike.

He follows the road for days, boots crunching on fragmented concrete, the track giving way to bare dirt where the old road crosses the river, all its bridges long washed out. Slowly but surely the hills give rise to mountains, rising step and jagged, cut to narrow points by the hungry bite of the timefall. There's little cover out here, not without walking for hours to reach the foot of the mountains, so Sam makes do, choking down dry ration bars and hunkering down in the grass when he dares try and steal a few hours sleep.

This far out the wasteland is still and silent, utterly empty. On deliveries like this Sam can go days, weeks, without speaking, the only sound to meet his ears the low rustle of the grass in the wind and the distant call of birdsong. BB makes that harder. Every now and then he'll make a noise, gurgles within his pod, watching Sam through the glass. He's curious. Or bored. Or maybe a bit of both. But the look on his tiny face, his wide eyes, tiny mou of a pout as he sucks on his thumb is enough to make Sam huff, amused despite himself.

"Nothing much going on, huh?" Sam asks, as BB slowly lets himself turn over in his pod, spinning in the water until his tiny feet are pressed against the stop of the pod, only for him to kick off and quickly wriggle back around, looking far too delighted with the simple maneuver. Sam can't help but smile.

"Do you even know what's going on? Anyone ever explain, well, _this?_ " Sam jerks his head out towards the wasteland, glancing down at BB. He stares up at Sam, sucking on his thumb. Sam sort of doubts he understood a word he said. He huffs, bemused, and shakes his head. "It's a bit of a fucked up topic. No really something you'd tell a kid I guess."

BB giggles, letting out a long stream of bubbles. Sam shoots him a sideways look, but BB looks totally entranced. Sam hums, then shrugs. "Not like you're going to understand anyway. It all started with the first voidout. You know what that is? No? What about timefall? Do you even know what rain is?" 

Sam frowns, glancing down at BB. BB just blinks at him. "Guess that's a good a place to start as any. It all starts with evaporation. Lakes and rivers and the seas and stuff, they're all made of water, which is made of lot of water molecules-"

Maybe it's a waste of time, maybe it's pathetic, spending so long talking to a BB, but it makes the days pass a little faster, and Sam reckons that alone is a good enough reason to keep doing it.

* * *

There's something eerie about being this deep in the wasteland. Old roads creep across America like veins through a body, rotting to pieces but still tracing broken paths between ruined towns. Those first strandings had caught people by surprise, causing voidouts that spanned dozens of kilometers. By the time people realized what was going on it was too late, an exodus had begun, mass panic driving people to flee the major cities in their thousands.

The first timefalls had done even worse. A couple of minutes in heavy timefall will melt someone down to their bones and teeth, and back when it was all first beginning people didn't know to avoid it, didn't know how to protect against it. The first timestorm killed millions, wiping entire cities off the map, and you can still see traces of it in the landscape. Ghost towns dot the wasteland, concrete husks being slowly chewed away by the timefall, silent and empty in the sun, only to turn black and hazy with the number of their BTs every time it rains. Death chokes these towns and even in the sunlight Sam's skin still prickles with the faint feeling of something otherworldy pressing down on him.

He gives those towns a wide berth, tracing ambling paths around the ruins of places that were once homes, crumbling away beneath the brutal influence of the timefall until all that is left are weathered piles of rock and streaks of red where iron once stood, every trace of the people who lived there washed away by time.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that the world was once home to 9 billion people. These days it feels so empty, scattered pockets of people etching a living on the edge of craters, too scared to leave the walls of their cities for fear of the horrors that lurk beyond.

After five days the road starts winding southward and Sam leaves it's company, taking to the hills instead. Follow it too long and all you'll find the vast expanse of the lake, pressed right up against the mountains in a sheer cliff-side carved out in a voidout a decade or so back.

The mountains rise around him over the course of the next few days, terrain growing rough and jagged, tearing at his already worn boot. It's unforgiving terrain. One slip could he his ankle broken, one tumble see him shattered on the rocks at the foot of the valley. Sam picks his way through the mountains slowly, carefully, walking for hours to find detours when the valley leads him up against sheer cliff-face. Sometimes he climbs, hammering anchors into the ground with every third step, laying ladders to carry him across rising precipices, but most of the time he just back tracks - goes around. Slower that way, but safer. Sam knows what's waiting for him at the top, and he'll need every bit of gear he has if he wants even a chance of making it through.

He see's the clouds first. Back in the day, before, rain used to mean fertility, life, and peoples spent centuries fighting over it, slaughtering each other so they could stand beneath the rains and reap its bounty. Funny how things turn around. Clouds hug the mountain side, trapped there by the jagged peaks, creating a rain shadow that douses the valleys in an almost constant drizzle, breaking out into a full deluge every other day in showers that can last for days on end.

It rains almost constantly - and the lands are a barren wasteland for it.

The drizzle starts almost an hour before, barely most than a low mist, but its enough to send his hood up, clicking a rain warning. BB shifts in his pod, sending uneasy glances up the hill, and Sam lays a hand on the top of his pod even as he takes another step forward. The ground is rocky, loose underfoot, threatening to send pebbles cascading down the hill behind him. 

Loud. 

Dangerous.

He crests the ridge, staring out over the landscape, a twisting network of mountains and valleys, made brutal and jagged by the constant weathering of the timefall. If he squints between his lashes, really focusing, he can just make out black threads cutting through the clouds and disappearing into the valleys. There are dozens of them, hundreds, stretching for miles through the mountains. Walking through them he wouldn't make it a day. He can mask his breathing all he wants, move as so slowly he's crawling, but eventually he'll slip up. He'll breath just a bit too loud, bump his foot against a rock, and then its all over. All it takes is one mistake.

What Die-Hardman failed to realize was that they weren't just valleys - they were ravines, and that gives Sam and entirely new dimension of maneuvering to work with.

Sam takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and glances down at BB. "You ready, kid?"

BB stares up at him, eyes wide, anxiety a palpable thing through the connection. "No? Me neither." Sam says, and reaches for a ladder anyway.

* * *

He runs simulations. Every hour, more simulations. Calculates angles, distances, risk of instability. Compiles environmental data, every inch of data his ordadek can pick up, and feeds it into models that write spiderpaths across the top of the canyons, assessing for risk. Most times he's luck if it's under 70% chance of failure. It taxes the memory of his comms unit, not built for the task but jury-rigged to do it anyway, burning through battery at an alarming rate, but Sam forces them to keep running, praying that the few pale slithers of sunlight that made it through the omnipresent clouds will be enough to keep his cuff charged. Without it he doesn't stand a chance.

Because here's the thing, the ravines? They're a fucking mess. They wind and twist, narrow and widen almost at random, sudden pillars rising only to give way to vast canyons a moment later. And sometimes, the distance is just enough for Sam to extend a ladder and scurry across.

It's been five days already. Five days of Sam crawling from plateau to plateau, holding his breath as he ties ropes above the heads of BTs, extends ladders and prays to every god humanity has ever known that it won't knock a rock loose on the other end and end it all. He can feel the cords as he crawls past, so close they almost brush his skin, and knows that if he looks down he'll see a sea of black bodies beneath him, BT's so thick you can't distinguish one from the other.

He'd only looked down once. He doesn't anymore. Can't bear to, not when the very thought of it is enough to make bile rise in his throat, the terror threatening to stop him in his tracks.

He's forgotten what it feels like not to taste rust in his mouth, gritting his teeth so hard that it makes his mouth bleed. Forgets every noise but the howling of the wind and the patter of rain on stone. Forgets what it feels like not to ache with the sheer physical weight of his exhaustion, pressing down on his shoulders, the straps of his bag wearing bloody lines right down to the bone.

He runs another simulation, lays the next ladder, and doesn't look down.

* * *

Sam winds a bandage around his bloody hand, tying it shut with a sharp tug of his teeth, and presses the next piton into place. It hisses at it merges with the rock, sinking deep and anchoring itself, and Sam doesn't even flinch at the noise, too exhausted to even grit his teeth.

Sometimes, he wonders grimly, rubbing at his race roughly, he doesn't know why he ever got involved with BRIDGEs. 

The obvious answer is Bridget. It had been her dream, her drive, her very own white whale, and she'd pursued it with a devotion that was downright desperate. When it came down to it, everything boiled down to BRIDGEs with her. Everything she did, everything she said, look close enough and it was all just for BRIDGEs.

He hadn't realized that for a long time, not until after Roanoke. How many times had she called him then, begging him to come back and take up the project again? Always, always _come back, BRIDGEs needs you._ As if BRIDGEs even mattered at that point, after everything Bridget had done. He wonders if that's how she justified it to herself, if that's what she told Lucy. _We shouldn't worry Sam with this, he's busy. BRIDGEs needs him._

Had she known what she was doing? Had she even cared?

Anxious concern comes bubbling up through the connection, and Sam glances down to find BB staring up at him, his eyes wide and scared. Sam lays his hand on the pod, breathing back a silent sigh. He doesn't dare speak, not standing so close to the ravine, not when he can see the black cords in the corner of his eye, but he does his best to reassure BB anyway, smoothing his hand over the curve of the pod and trying to muster a weak feeling of _we're okay_ to send back through the connection.

Maybe if he says it enough it will start feeling real.

His fingers tremble as he lays the next piton, but Sam just keeps his eyes fixed on the rock. Exhaustion weighs on his shoulder like a physical weight, every step threatening to force him down into the rock. It's been almost two days now since the last time they had a chance to rest, and it's taking it's toll. The presence of the BT's around them, never quite out of reach wears on them both. Even when you cant see them you can feel them, a low grade crawling on his skin that never ends, only growing worse whenever he approaches the edge of a plateau. He can't bring himself to close his eyes this close, can't bring himself to try and sleep when he can feel their proximity prickling his skin.

There's nothing to do but keep going. They're too far in to turn back.

Sam rubs at his face roughly, glancing down at BB. _We'll be okay_ , he promises, and does his best to try and believe it.

* * *

They steal snatched hours of sleep on high peaks, dragging themselves up almost sheer cliff faces just to put that extra bit of distance between them and the BTs. The wind is worse up here, bitingly cold, but once or twice he even manages to find enough of an angle in the rock to get out of the worst of the rain.

They curl up there, pressed tight against the rock face, tied fast to the rock with rope looped through his belt. It's uncomfortable, cold, the stone digging hard into every one of Sam's sore joints, but sometimes they manage to get just high enough for the odradek to disengage - just enough of a pretense of security to allow him to collapse into an exhausted slumber.

BB's be been silent since they started crossing the ravines. Usually he gurgles and hums as they travel, giggling to himself whenever Sam accidentally sinks his leg up to the knee in a vein of mud. Now he's utterly silent, and Sam isn't sure what to make of it. He doesn't know if it's because BB somehow knows that the BTs can track you by sound or if it's the feeling of them around them, if the relentless pressure of their presence crushing against his senses is starting to get to him as well. There's barely a single moment that they're out of the sensor's range, and sometimes Sam can't help but wonder bleakly what that must feel like. To know all the time, exactly where they are, how close they truly are. At least when he can't see them he can pretend.

Wonder's if the exhaustion he feels is just his own, or if BB is just as tired as he is. Sam wouldn't be surprised.

Sam presses his fingers to the top of the pod, humming lowly in the back of his throat. The clouds has parted a couple of hours ago, letting through the first real patch of sun Sam has seen in days. It's not much, barely meriting the name, but it'd made the rain let up. Enough for Sam pull his hood back, feeling the wind on his face for what feels like the first time in weeks.

He can feel BB fading fast, the connection giving way to the warm static hum of unconsciousness. Some of the stress bleeds from Sam's shoulders. BB looks so small like this, curled tightly in his pod, thumb tucked into his mouth. If Sam presses his fingers against the glass he can just feel the faint thrum of BB's heartbeat, growing slower with sleep.

"Sleep." Sam whispers roughly, smoothing a hand over the pod. "One of us should."

* * *

Another day. More rain. Sam's been doing his best to reuse his ladders, but far too often they can't be recovered without throwing rocks loose. He counts his remaining pitons religiously, checking and double checking, staring out over the ravines at the growing mountains, at prays that they'll have enough.

Tries not to think about what will happen if he runs out.

Thirteen pitons left. Four ladders remaining. It'll have to be enough. It has to be.

* * *

Sometimes, BB dreams, and when he does Sam dreams with him. It's different to the connection, that initial flash of emotion and memory that comes spilling up through the cord. Those are brief, fleeting, the edges blurred and messy, everything blending together. 

The dreams are different. Deeper somehow. When BB dreams, Sam can feel the heat of the pod around him, can hear the gentle burble and shift of liquid all around him, all sound distorted.

On the good days, BB dreams of the road, of staring at bright bursts of colour, flowers blooming, each more vivid and strange than the last. He dreams of a lullaby, the gentle vibration of it through the glass as the man rocks the pod. He dreams of other music, louder, stranger, as the man waltzes by himself in the middle of the room, pausing just long enough to smile and rest his hand on the glass as he passes. _I'll teach you to dance too one day, BB-_

On bad days, BB dreams of feet thudding on the floor, dark corridors twisting quickly around them. He dreams of a dark room, still and silent save for the hoarse gurgle of the man's breath, blood so dark it's almost black smeared across the surface of the pod. He dreams of the man kneeling down with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, fingers coming to cup the pod. _It's almost over. I promise. It's almost time._

"Who are you?" Sam whispers, scrubbing at his face as he tries to shake the last clinging vestiges of the dream, dread and confusion churning in his guts, heart still pounding in his chest. The wind doesn't answer, and Sam lets his head fall back, staring out over the ravines. In his pod BB shifts in his sleep, fingers twitching restlessly, still caught in the dream.

Port Knot. As soon as they make it to Port Knot they'll have some answers. Some clue. _Something._

* * *

He never thought he would get close enough to touch a BTs cord before, hadn't thought it would even be possible. Now he's seen far too many of them, black lines suspended loosely in the air only feet from his ladder, close enough for him to reach out and touch.

How many times has he had to do this now? Lay his ladder right across a stranding and count his breaths as he slowly crawls across it, BB's heart pounding in his ears alongside his own, the flutter of his anxiety now a common backdrop to the numbing terror of Sam's own thoughts.

The worst part is, if he survives this he'll just go crawling back to BRIDGEs. Accept their thanks like a pat on the head and retire to his rooms like a dog to the kennel, waiting for the next suicide mission they'll send him on. Because there will be another - it's why BRIDGEs needs him. It's the only reason they ever needed him, because he's willing to take the missions no sane porter will. Because they know that, in the end, he wont say no.

* * *

Five more steps. Four. Two.

Sam's feet hit the ground and his legs collapse beneath him, the rope slipping from between his loose fingers and pooling on the ground around him. He laughs breathlessly scrubbing at his face, breath bubbling in his throat as he tries to come to terms with the fact its over. That he actually fucking _did it._

_"Shit."_ He laughs, fingers fumbling as he unlatches BB's pod and pulls him up, slapping a kiss against the glass. "BB we did it. We did it!"

BB wriggles, eyes wide and tired, but responding to the Sam's joy none the less. He gives a tiny toothless smile, letting out a burbling trail of bubbles that pop against the top of his pod, and then sticks his thumb back in his mouth, eyes already drifting closed. Sam lets him, pressing a warm hand to the top of the pod. "Sleep all you want kid. You deserve it."

Sam drags himself around, putting his back against the cliff. The moment his back touches the rock he slumps, loosing the will to even pretend to hold himself up. He's exposed, out in the open, but he can't bring himself to care. Let the MULEs fucking come. Sam will deal with a camp full of MULEs if it means not having to take another single fucking step.

He lets his head fall back. For the first time in what feels like an eternity he can't feel the crawl of BT's on his skin, can't feel the cold prickle of them deep in his bones. He closes his eyes.

* * *

Sam doesn't know what time of day it is when he wakes up and doesn't care to find out. He crawls to the nearest cave he can find and drags himself right to the back of it, dropping down in the old loamy soil and goes right back to sleep, one arm curled around BB's pod.

He wakes only intermittently for the next few days, prying his eyes open for just long enough to force down a ration bar and some water before drifting off again. Sometimes when wakes BB's pod is unveiled, casting a warm orange light against the low ceiling of the cave, BB's eyes wide and luminous as he peers up at Sam. "G'kid." Sam mumbles, fingers numb and sleep clumsy as he lifts them to gently pat the pod. "Y'should sleep, BB."

Sam yawns, his jaw cracking with the force of it, and after that it becomes very difficult to keep his eyes open. He doesn't try to, letting his head drop back down against the ground. BB's wide eyes, pressed close against the glass of the pod, is the last thing he sees, the first gentle bars of the lullaby playing through the connection.

When he finally wakes up its to 28 unread messages blinking at him insistently from the interface of his cuff, and almost that many again missed calls from Die-Hardman and Deadman, each and every one marked urgent. Sam grunts, gabbing his finger at his cuff, yawning as the dial rings, sounding the call. It doesn't make it one ring.

_"Sam!"_ Deadman cries. _"You're alright! Everyone was worried something had happened to you. You're cuff shows you've passed the ravines, but you've been out of contact for days. Are you alright? Has anything happened? Your cuff isn't malfunctioning is it? It's showing normal vitals but-"_

"I'm fine." Sam interrupts roughly. "Just sleeping. Things were a bit touch and go across the ravines. Didn't have much chance to rest."

_"Oh."_ Deadman says, sounding immensely relieved. _"That's good. That's great! Die-Hardman was concerned that something had happened. He's been trying to organize sending someone from Port Knot to find you."_

"Are all his calls about this?" Sam asks, pushing himself onto his back. It makes his shoulders ache something fierce, raw and tired from carrying the full load of aid supplies. His spine does a funny thing as it straightens, a sort of unpleasant tingle that lefts him know he's been sleeping curled up for too long.

_"Yes. I mean, perhaps he had other business as well, but he's been waiting for you to check in. He's been very concerned-"_ Deadman starts, and Sam can tell from the tone of his voice that he's working his way up to a whole lecture. Sam cuts him off preemptively.

"Tell him I'm fine. I'll call him tomorrow. For now I'm going back to sleep."

_"Oh! Oh yes of course! My apologies for keeping you up, Sam. I'll let you rest. Sleep well!"_

"Yeah." Sam says, then more awkwardly: "Thanks." He ends the call before he's can be forced to say anything else and slumps back. BB's pod is dark against his chest, but he can feel the gentle press of his thoughts through the connection, fuzzy and indistinct from sleep. Sam leaves him be. BB worked just as hard, if not harder, these last few days. Sam doesn't know if BB's even need sleep, but goddamn if he isn't going to make sure BB gets just as much as he wants, _equipment requirements_ be damned.

"I wouldn't have made it without you, you know that right?" Sam murmurs, glancing down at the pod. "Wouldn't have made it past the first fucking hour." If Sam hadn't made it- Well, nobody would have mourned much. But the thought of croaking out there and leaving BB there, trapped in the center of a stranding... Equipment or not, nothing deserved that fate. It had that that kept him going, that kept him putting one foot in front of the other after the nth hour of walking, his limbs weighing so heavy with exhaustion that he felt like he was going to turn to stone.

He's getting too attached. He knows it. He can imagine well what Die-Hardman would say, what Deadman has said, again and again. BBs are equipment. They're not people, not really. Getting fixated on them is unhealthy, illogical, and yet, Sam can't help but be somewhat fond of the small guy regardless. 

He doesn't know what to make of that thought, so he doesn't think about it, just closes his eyes and goes back to sleep instead. He'll deal with it all when he wakes up. Until then, he lets his arm curl around BB's pod and lets himself drift off.


	5. Order No.14

Port Knot is a sight an a half. It perches on the edge of the lake, old docks stretching out over the water like rusted fingers, abandoned and slowly falling to pieces, only to come to an abrupt stop two dozen meters from the shore where the crater of the first voidout begins. Warehouses dot the shore, too big and too numerous for the dying trickle of trade that crosses the lake. They stand empty and vacant, maintained only by the fact they happen to fall beneath the protection of Port Knot's shields, dark blots on an otherwise barren landscape - and beyond them, the lake, still and flat, stretching all the way to the horizon.

Something like two dozen voidouts went into making it, and together they split the continent almost in half. Standing at the shore of it, you'd think you've reached the far sea. Only the perfect curve of the lake's shore gives it away, it's water's too still, too deep. There's a reason few people dare try cross it, even before the Separatists started blowing up people's boats.

Sam approaches it with a sense of growing dread, anticipation making him impatient. He doesn't know what Seydoux is going to tell them, doesn't know if she'll even talk to him about it at all, let alone if it will be useful.

He glares at the scanner as he waits for it to verify him, torn between eager anticipation and gut churning anxiety at the thought of having to enter the city. _"BRIDGES ID Verified. Welcome to Port Knot, Sam Porter. Pleased be advised that all weapons are locked down within city limits."_

Sam lets out a hissed breath when the cells of the forcefield finally disengaging, discharging energy with a fizzling hiss, the barrier slowly rising. He glances towards the city, then makes a beeline for the BRIDGEs base instead. He ignores the curious looks he draws from the workers in the courtyard, keeping his eyes set straight ahead. He knows he must a look a mess, hollow eyed and streaked with dirt, wandering in from the wasteland like some sort of feral creature. He can hear them murmuring behind him, voices rising in strength and confidence as the distance increases. "Is that-? It can't be-"

His shoulders hunch, and Sam quickens his pace, striding quickly for the terminal. There's a man waiting for him in the hanger. His eyes widen when he spots Sam, and he hurries forward. "Sam Porter! We've been expecting you. Die-Hardman said you would come." He says it almost disbelievingly, and Sam doesn't blame him. 

"You Victor Frank?" Sam asks, trying to coach his voice towards something less than pure festering irritation. The days starting to catch up with him, thirteen hours of walking leaving him numbed and exhausted, made no better by the growing sense of urgency churning his insides into a sickening mess of doubt and anxiety. It's too late to go find Seydoux tonight, but damn if Sam doesn't want to anyway.

"Yeah, sorry, that's me." Frank says, shooting him a sheepish smile. "We heard you'd be coming over the Impass. Couldn't quite believe it, but- Well, look at you. Didn't know it was even possible."

Sam just shrugs, busying himself with unloading the package so that he has an excuse not to reply. The whole frame creaks when he puts it down, aged by two weeks of almost constant exposure to timefall, and Sam doesn't waste any time unclasping the package.

Frank makes an awed noise when Sam connects the qupid, eyes widening as light spills across the walls of the hanger, processes integrating before their very eyes and counting down the moment the chiral network connection is finally established. Sam waits for it to be over numbly, BB too tired to muster his usual awe at the spectacle. 

Frank lets out a shaky breath, staring at the terminal. "You know, I was starting to wonder if it would ever actually happen. I thought- Well. Guess it doesn't matter now. Thanks." Frank turns to him, wets a little wet, smile bright and open, his relief visible in the lines of his shoulder. "Really, I don't know how to thank you-"

"Don't." Sam snaps, and Frank pauses, shooting him a startled look. Sam scrubs his hands over his face, letting out a rough breath. "Look." Sam says, exhausted. "I'm just doing my job, same as you. Same as anyone. I don't want- Don't thank me, okay? Just don't."

Frank nods, but Sam can tell from the look on his face that he doesn't quiet get it. And Sam just-Sighs. He's too fucking tired to try and guess whatever fool-hearty conclusion Franks's dragged himself to, whatever story he's making up to explain it. He doesn't know and he doesn't care. "It's been a long day, do you have a room or...?"

"Oh. Yes. Of course." Frank blinks, quickly gesturing for Sam to follow him. "We have one made up for you. Die-Hardman's been sending us you're coordinates. To be honest I hardly believe him when he told us what you were doing." Frank says, a flick of his cuff activating the elevator. The floor hisses, sinking smoothly downward into the bowels of the facility.

Sam slumps against his door the moment its close, letting his head thud back against the door with a long sigh as he listens to Franks footsteps fade away. He stands there for a moment, just breathing, and then pushes himself off the wall, dumping his pack right there where he'd been standing. He pauses just long enough to secure BB into the cradle, shoulders slumping when the connection clicks into place and the interface levels start rising, and then drags himself to the shower and turns the water to its highest setting.

It's scalding hot, steam clouding the glass almost instantly, and Sam groans at it hammers down on his shoulders, letting his head fall forward until his forehead is pressed against the wall. He's still in his clothes, still wearing his ragged old boots, but he doesn't care. The water, the heat and pressure of it feels like sheer fucking bliss, scouring weeks of grime and sweat from his skin and seeping deep into his tired and aching muscles.

The tension slowly drains from his limbs, the fight slowly leaving him as it starts to sink in that he's safe. His limbs are slowly growing heavier, lulled to sleep by the heat, and Sam drags himself upright just long enough to fumble his way out of his clothes, kicking off his boots and leaving them on the floor of the shower along with his sodden clothes, before leaning back against the wall and tilting his head back into the spray. 

Theoretically Knots can never run out of hot water, each one powered by an independent reactor that could power a city four times the size of Capital Knot. Sam's never tried to test it, but he makes a good attempt today. He doesn't know how much time he spends in the shower, just standing there, leaning back into the spray in between lazy attempts to scrub the worst of the blood and grime from his skin.

The lights in his room have sunk to half-intensity when he finally drags himself out, his skin flushed pink and tender, the last drops of water evaporating into steam even as he takes the few stumbling steps to the bed and crawls beneath the covers, dragging the blankets up about himself and falling asleep in the time it takes his head to hit the pillow.

* * *

BB's watching him when he wakes up, the light of his pod casting the room in a dim orange glow. He's curled up in the cradle, thumb tucked securely in his mouth, but he blinks at Sam when he groans and pokes his head out from within his mess of blankets. He rolls onto his back with a groan, delighting in the loose ache of his shoulder, still lax and warm from the shower however many hours ago.

BB gurgles, sounding happy, and Sam nods. "Yeah, good morning to you too."

The metal of his cuff his warm feels for once, left a comfortable temperature after hours tucked against his body beneath the covers. Sam prods at it lazily, checking for new orders, and rolls his eyes when he see's a message from Die-Hardman at the top of the list.

_Heard you arrived at Port Knot. Call me when you're up._

Later, Sam decides. He won't ignore it. Just... give it an hour. Sam flicks to the next message, and finds himself vaguely surprised when he realizes who its from.

_Hey Sam,_

_Glad to hear you got to Port Knot safely. You have no idea what a weight it is off my mind. Anyway, I know you probably don't care to hear from me, but I just wanted to let you know that Amari and Marianne are doing well. The medication you brought is doing wonders for Amari's transition, Marianne says they look happier than she's ever seen them. They're glad to hear you're safe. They were worried when they heard you were heading through a stranding._

_I figure Die-Hardman's going to be sending you across the lake next right? Good luck with that. Given your luck no doubt it'll be a mess, but I have no doubt you'll get out of it. You seem to have a knack for it._

_See you next time, Sam._

_Ben Hancock._

Sam blinks at the message, reading it again for good measure, not entirely sure what to make of it. In the end he deletes it without replying and distracts himself with ordering some food. He reads the updates from Deadman as he eats, checking the reports about chiral densities, the stability of the new network connections. Most of it doesn't make a lot of sense to him, but he knows enough to get a general idea of what he's saying. The chiral densities are increasing again and no one is sure why, but they think its probably harmless. _Probably_ being the key term there.

Then he bites the bullet and calls Die-Hardman. He picks up after the first ring, and Sam put it past him to have been sitting there, monitoring Sam's vitals and waiting for him to call. It seems like a very Die-Hardman thing to do.

_"Rested enough, Sam?"_ Die-Hardman asks, tone completely flat. Sam has no doubt he's somehow mocking him anyway. 

"Yeah." Sam says dryly. "I did, thanks."

_"We've been in contact with a courier agency at Port Knot for some time, trying to broker a deal. I don't know if you've been keeping up to date, but the Separatists have had a heavy presence on the lake for the last few years, bombing any ships that try to cross. Most companies have folded under the pressure. There used to be a couple of different companies that made deliveries across, now there's just the one."_

"Fragile Express." Sam says, wondering if someones been pulling strings in the background. There are been too many coincidences in Sam's life recently, and in his experience that sort of thing never ends well. He doesn't know if Deadman told him about her as part of some ploy to motivate Sam to go west, doesnt know whether Die-Hardman's just capitalized on the situation to get Sam to take a shorter route, cut out the months of walking of going north through White Earth. Neither option sits well with him.

_"You know her?"_ Die-Hardman asks, and Sam can't tell if he's imaging the note of expectation in his voice.

"I've heard the name once or twice." Sam says vaguely, and Die-Hardman makes a curt noise of agreement.

_"Our people in Port Knot say she's amenable to a deal. We need her, make no mistake - she's our best shot at crossing the lake any time in the next three months, and we're going to need her connections on the west side if we're going to have any chance of bringing the preppers into the fold."_

"What I'm hearing is don't fuck it up." Sam says. Great to hear BRIDGEs has such confidence in him.

_"Glad you got the message."_ Die-Hardman says dryly. _"And Sam?"_

Sam sighs, glancing at the comm, glad Die-Hardman didn't favor holo tech. It's bad enough having to hear his voice, let alone see him leering at him smugly from behind his damn mask. "Yeah?"

_"Don't fuck it up."_

* * *

There are things Sam is willing to do to complete an order. He'll walk through timefall, drive weeks through some of the most isolated, barren land the country has to offer, wade through marshes up to his damn chest for days on end, but he always draws the line at going in a city. He drops his packages off at the gate terminal, lets the customer get it from there, fuck any complaints about the service.

Back when he was a kid he'd lived with Bridget at Capital Knot, back before his sensitivity had given way to full blown aphenphosmphobia, before he became a porter, before Roanoke. Seventeen years since his first stranding, his very first repatriation, and he hasn't been able to bear setting foot in a city since. Hasn't been able to even look at one without his skin crawling. There's something about that many people, the thought of walking down the street, stranger's shoulder bumping his in the crowd, everyone so close. Sam can't stand it.

Port Knot is barely worth being called a town, only a fraction the size of Capital Knot, and yet its enough to set his teeth on edge. Fragile Express's base is right at the very heart of it, of course, and Sam curses every chain of events that lead to him being here now, putting one foot in front of the other and gritting his teeth as he walks deeper into the city, leaving the wide expanse of the lake behind him in favor of crowded streets.

Port Knot was once the dock of a much larger city, spared only by the fact the warehouse districts had been empty enough to avoid being caught in the voidout. People had made do, building up around what had been left, and the result is a mess of houses and shops built up around the ugly bulk of the original warehouses. With the lake routes getting fucked by the Separatists there's not much trade anymore, but there's enough back and forth with the settlements up the lake to make Port Knot qualify as busy.

There are people in the streets, open air shops doing business in stalls lining the major throughfares. and it's enough to tie Sam's spine up in knots. The very thought of it threatening to make his breath catch in his throat. He has the desperate urge to turn around, run back to his room, leave Port Knot entirely. He feels vulnerable without BB, left sleeping back in his rooms, but carrying him would only draw more attention and Sam's already at his limit. 

His cuff blinks at him damningly, the address staring up at him in sterile blue, cruel and insistent. He can just imagine what Die-Hardman would say. Oh he'd be angry, but worse than that is the thought of the pity in his voice. That, more than anything, makes Sam grit his teeth, taking another step and angling himself around the worst of the crowd.

Funny, that. Once again its BRIDGEs forcing him to do things he'd swore he'd never do. They were good at that.

He moves quickly, tense and withdrawn, skin crawling, sure that any moment's someones going to turn around and grab him by the arm. An over-handsy merchant, some poor kid begging for likes, some fucking good samaritan trying to save his soul. There are too many possibilities. Snatches of conversation wash over him, loud and careless. People haggling over the price of fruit, replacement parts, the newest shipment of batteries, every one of them caught up in their own little world. Sam's glad for it. Not a single one of them sends a look in his direction, and the tension in his shoulders eases a little when he's finally past the worst of it. 

Sam keeps his eyes straight ahead, sets his shoulders, and doesn't stop until he see's the sign hanging in the distance, the stern flicker of its neon lights almost enough to make him weep. He jogs the last stretch, letting out a ragged breath when the door finally clicks shut behind him, the tension seeping from his shoulders.

A terminal across the room lights up as the door shuts, an elegant blue interface spilling over the walls. _"Welcome to FRAGILE Express."_ The AI says, it's tone soft and feminine. _"How may we help you today?"_

"I have an appointment with Seydoux." He says, watching as the interface shifts, processing the request. He sighs, glancing across the reception. There's a sleek desk, all smooth curves and chrome, though Sam doubts they've employed an actual receptionist in years. He glances back towards the interface, finds it still processing, and sighs, turning towards one of the waiting chairs- only to flinch when he finds himself face to face with a woman.

"Sam Porter." She says with a warm smile. It doesn't reach her eyes. "Or do you prefer Sam Strand?

"Porter." Sam grunts, schooling his expression to something neutral. She's waiting for him to ask about how she got there, appearing behind him when he'd sworn he was alone, so Sam doesn't. He studies her face instead. "We've met before." He says, finally putting a finger on it. "During a timefall near Florence a couple of months back."

"I recall." She agrees, unphased, and motions for him to follow her into the next room, leading him out into a long hallway. "You never told me your name."

"Neither did you." Sam replies. Few people venture into the wastes, and those who do are never friendly. It's not a place you go to make friends.

"And yet here we are. Funny how things work out." She says, opening the door to a small conference room. The interface flickers to life as they enter, sleek blue spilling out over the glass, but Sam barely gives it a glance, dropping down into the first chair he sees.

"So." He says, cutting right to the heart of the matter. "BRIDGEs wants to make a deal, and they say you're good for it."

"BRIDGEs is trying to expand it's network." Seydoux replies neutrally, a flick of her wrist sending the interface spilling across the table, a map of the continent stretching between them, every one of BRIDGEs Knots highlighted. Almost a dozen have been activated, glowing a soft yellow, but there are still dozens more, dark and unrealized, spanning all the way to the west coast. Months he's been working for BRIDGEs, and he's still only connected a fraction of them. 

"They want to set up a contract with my fleet - regular passenger ships, back and forth across the lake, and a discount on all BRIDGEs cargo. In exchange they offer protection from the Separatists and access to the chiral network." Seydoux continues, barely looking at the map. Her eyes are fixed on Sam instead. He keep his gaze on the map, studying it with false intensity.

"Sounds like a good deal." He says mildly.

Seydoux makes an amused noise, leaning back in her chair. She'd left her umbrella by the door and it hovers there, still spinning in slow circles, it's panes occasionally shifting of their own accord, adjusting to some unknown parameters with a low click. "Is it?" She asks. "BRIDGEs has been warring with the Separatists for years. They're desperate to expand the chiral network, have been hooking preppers up for free for months from what I hear. They're not offering me anything they're not going to do anyway."

"They." Sam notes, curious. "Am I not BRIDGEs too?"

Seydoux just smiles. Sam had had the chance to meet a cat once in his youth, back before they'd become an even rarer commodity, and the look it had given him was much the same as Seydoux's expression now. Cryptic, it's amusement tempered by indifference. "Do you consider yourself a part of BRIDGEs? Really?"

Sam huffs a laugh, leaning back in his chair. "No." He admits. "Which is why I'll be up front. The deal they're offering you is shit. You're right, they need you more than you need them. They'll hook you up to the network regardless, and you're the only one with a way across the lake - most of their porters go through you anyway. So why agree to their terms?"

"They offered me something else - something I couldn't refuse."

"And what's that?" Sam asks, tone flat and suspicious.

"A favor from you." Seydoux says, and Sam sighs, not even surprised. Figures BRIDGEs would whore him out, but he'd hoped they'd at least have the decency to warn him about it ahead of time.

"What sort of favor?" Sam asks, defeated.

"There's a man, someone.... lets say someone I owe a debt to. I need help finding him." Seydoux explains, her voice carefully neutral. "You're a skilled porter, and a repatriate no less. In the last year you've covered more ground than most porters do in a lifetime, and you're only just started. All I need you to do is keep an eye out, keep an ear to the ground, keep me updated on any sightings."

Sam lets out a low whistle, shooting her a mild look."That's not ominous at all. Hope you're not expecting me to transport any bodies."

She smiles, sharp and vicious. "Oh, I very much doubt there'll be a body left when I'm done with him."

Sam thinks about it for a moment, but he's just stalling. He's going to accept the deal and they both know it. Seydoux was right - they needed her more than she needed them. Sam could be resentful about it but... At least she'd been straight up about it, which is more than can be said for BRIDGEs. It leaves Sam more inclined to trust her, though its not like he has a choice.

"Alright." Sam says, not seeing the point of beating around the bush any longer. No doubt she's going to use him for all he's worth, but that's only fair, BRIDGEs is doing the exact same thing to her. So long as their interests are aligned, he doesn't think she'll screw them over.

Seydoux's smile is genuine for once, openly pleased. "Wonderful." She says, extending her hand for for a handshake, only to pause when Sam makes no move to reciprocate. "Ah." She says, drawing back, her expression neutral. "Aphenphosmphobia, isn't that right?"

"Something like that." Sam replies noncommittally.

"No offense taken." She says, standing. Behind her the contract signs itself, a recording of Sam's agreement attaching itself to the contract. His cuff lights up as a copy is sent to him, and he thumbs the authorization, verifying it with his ID. "We'll be taking the _L'Endurance_. It's in port now, undergoing inspection. We leave at 9 tomorrow."

Sam stands, nodding as the manifest is relieved by his cuff. He hesitates for a second, then sighs, going for it. "I had another question for you."

"Oh?" Seydoux pauses, curious, and looks at him. "Fire away."

"Someone told me that you can jump between Beaches. Is that true?"

Seydoux blinks slowly, then smiles. A second later she's gone and Sam yelps as there's a sharp crack from behind him, twisting just in time to see Seydoux step out of thin air. She just stands there, a single tear running down her cheek as her umbrella lowers into her hand once more, whirring and clicking. "Is that what you wanted to see?" She asks, raising one hand to wipe the tear away with her thumb.

Sam watches her cautiously, but nods. "And you're capable of going to someones Beach?" He asks tentatively.

Seydoux shakes her head, settling back into her chair with a sigh. "Not quite. I can only travel to my own Beach. It's... a gift of my DOOMs, you could say. I have a strong connection with my Beach, and if I concentrate I can jump there, travel there physically. But it's limited. I've only ever managed to get to my own Beach. Why?"

Sam sighs, scrubbing at his face, and looks at her for a moment. Oh what the hell. "I had a... incident. A while back. Abnormally high chiralium readings, manifested in the form of a storm. I got caught up in it, somehow ended up on someone else's Beach."

Seydoux leans forward, elbows coming to rest on the table, intrigued. "Did you see anyone?"

"Too many people." Sam replies. "But only one of them- conscious." And that's the issue, isn't it? Beaches are the realm of the dead, the borderland between life and the other side. There was no way of knowing whether the man he'd seen had even been alive, or whether he was just a ghost, the imprint of someone who once existed, playing out his last moments again and again on the Beach. And yet, BB remembered him. _Knew_ him. Sam doesn't know what to make of it.

"Did you know them?" Seydoux asks, eyes narrowing.

Sam opens his mouth. Hesitates. "No." He says eventually. He doesn't want to bring BB into this, doesn't want to reveal just how deeply BB's memories have been affecting him. Deadman has assured him it was a common phenomenon, just a side effect of using , but Sam doubts BRIDGEs would take it well. He doesn't want them getting any ideas.

Seydoux leans back, her fingers drumming thoughtfully on the table. "I've only heard of a few other people capable of physically travelling to their Beach, but never someone capable of travelling to someone else's. It's been theorized, of course. There's been accounts from repatriates about shared Beaches being created during mass deaths, suggesting at least some level of connection between Beaches, but... I'm afraid I don't know."

Sam sighs. He'd figured as much. Coming to Seydoux had always been a long shot. He's learned a little, but not nearly as much as he'd hoped. "Thanks." Sam says. "If you learn anything else..."

"I'll let you know." Seydoux says, looking amused, and Sam nods awkwardly. 

"I appreciate it."

"Think nothing of it." Seydoux says, taking up her umbrella once more. It floats into her hands, humming and whirring as it's planes shift. The door slides open, and Seydoux steps to the side, offering him the way. "I'll see you at the docks Sam. Don't be late."


	6. Order No.15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains someone with a touch-based phobia being non-consentually touched, with Sam's personal boundaries not being respected. Higgs is a disgusting pile of trash and I hope someone put him through a blender with hydrochloric acid. Honestly I have never hated a character more.

Of course its not that easy.

BB's the first one to sense something's wrong, the odradek flicking to life even as a sudden wave of discontent washes through the connection. Sam falters, halting mid-step, only to find BB's eyes flicking back and forth uncertainly, the nagging sense of _wrong_ only growing more intense.

BB's eyes fix on the ground a moment before the tar begins to spill forth, seeping out from the concrete, spreading slick and liquid around his feet. "Fuck fuck fuck." Sam lurches backwards, making a desperate bid for the street, tar clinging heavy to his legs, only rising higher.

Within seconds its lapping at his ankles, thick waves spilling over the side of the docks in a cascade, only to be met by even more tar, the harbor already chocked and thick with it, muddied flashes of white aggregating within the tar as thousands of fish begin to float up, already still and bloated. He doesn't make it more than a step before the first BT is emerging through the tar, hands reaching up, head blind and dripping, drowned in cloying black. It's fingers tighten around his leg and Sam kicks it off, only for another to seize him from behind, dozens of hands appearing through the tar, grasping at his ankles, his pack, fingers digging into everything they can reach and _pulling_ -

BB's squalling in his ears, terror heady through the connection, even as Sam thrashes and struggles, trying to wrench free even as the BTs pull him down inch by inch, the tar creeping up over his waist, rising up his chest. For every hand he manages to shake off another two seize him. His breath is coming quickly, halting and breathless, and he can feel it threaten to take him.

"Well this is disappointing."

Sam jerks around, wrenching his arm free from the grasping fingers of a BT. _What-_ There's a man floating a few feet away, watching Sam almost boredly. One leg crossed over the other, chin rested on his hand, propped against his knee, the toe of his shoe hovering just inches above the churning surface of the tar. He cocks his head, golden mask gleaming in the light, face hidden within the shadow of his hood.

"What the hell-"

"Sam Porter. _He who Delivers_." The man says, as if Sam had never spoken, his voice sharp, mocking. "Did you know, BRIDGEs is calling you their last hope? I expected more. Honestly-" There's a sharp crack, and all of a sudden there are fingers twisting in his hair, yanking his head back, the man's voice in his ear, so close Sam can feel his breath. "-it's pathetic."

"Who the fuck are you?" Sam jerks, wrenching himself away, and the man releases him with a laugh. The BTs release their grip all at once, vanishing back into the tar, and Sam goes stumbling at the sudden release of tension. He catches himself, just, and rounds on the man- Only to find empty air.

"I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I really don't." The man says, throwing an arm over Sam shoulder and dragging him close, his gloved fingers digging into Sam shoulder painfully. Sam snarls, twisting, fist coming up, only for a BT to catch his arm, tar spilling thick and cold over his arm as it drags him down. " _Look_ at you."

Fingers seize his chin, yanking his head to the left sharply, until his face is only inches from the mask and he can see the white of the man's eyes, the sharp amusement there as Sam jerks and struggles. His finger's only tighten, biting into Sam's jaw. "And you're what? Going to save everyone? _Save America?_ What a fucking joke."

" _Fuck you._ " Sam snarls, snapping his head forward with sudden, violent force. The man's eyes widen, but the hit never connects. Sam goes stumbling forward, all resistance disappearing as the man appears half a dozen feet away, letting out a low whistle as he brings his hands together and claps, almost congratulatory.

"Woo, got some fire in you after all." He laughs, delighted. "But..." He continues, voice stone cold. He spreads his arms, and for a moment the churning of the tar goes utterly still. The first patter of rain is light, barely more than a drizzle, but within seconds the rain is pouring down, thundering against the concrete and spilling over Port Knot's barriers in sheets. "It's not going to save you."

Then, movement, a shiver across the surface of the tar as something shifts, long, twisting arms erupting from the tar. A golden mask breaches the surface a moment later, misshapen and empty-eyed, even as more arms emerge writhing from the tar. Sam takes a halting step back. The beast- BT, monster, whatever the fuck it is, is enormous.

The man lets his arms drop, meeting Sam's eyes across the distance, the monster writhing in the tar beneath him, violent energy tightly leashed. The man's eyes narrow, smile visible even behind the shield of his mask. He waggles his fingers. "Give Fragile my love, won't you?" He rises, gathering himself, only to pause. "And oh- Good luck, Sam. You're going to need it." He says, voice flat.

Sam doesn't seem him go, his eyes fixed on the creature in the tar, but he hears it. A sharp crack. For a moment everything is still, silent just for an instant, and then the world comes crashing back down around him. The rain is a thundering pressure, heavy and percussive, BB's wailing sharp and shrill, terrified, but it's another sound that make's Sam's heart still in his chest: the sudden churning squelch of the tar as the creature is finally let loose, bursting into furious action at the moment of the man's disappearance.

Sam throws himself back, dragging himself back through the tar even as the first tentacled arm comes crashing down, sending thick splatters of tar erupting in all directions as it comes slamming down only a meter from where Sam's standing. There's a low gurgle from below, the beast's golden mask rising from the tar at the edge of the dock, and Sam makes an executive decision - throwing himself off the other side of the dock and dropping down into the harbor.

There's a deafening slam from above, tar cascading over the edge of the dock as the creature's arms sweep across it's surface, the splinter of shattering crates muted by the thick slurping of the tar. It rains down on his head, thick globs of tar splattering over his shoulders. Sam doesn't look up, grabbing hold of one of the rails and dragging himself through the tar, waist high and thick as anything. Every step is a slog, excruciatingly slow, the tar sucking at his legs.

_"-am, can you- ear me? S-zzht. Can you hear me? This is Mama. Come in-"_ The comms crackles to life, transmission patchy and heavy with static.

"Little busy here." Sam snarls, dragging himself forward another step, digging his heels in. There's another deafening slam from above, another wave of tar boiling over the edge of the dock, and He can't see what the creature's doing, but he doubts it'll waste its attention on the dock for much longer. Soon it's going to figure out it can come around, and when it does he'll be a sitting duck, and then-

Sam grits his teeth, digging his fingers into the rail of the dock and hauling himself forward another miserable centimeter. _"-Sam! Get to the loading ba- zzht -ere's a package there. Her- sszt - grenades! There's already loaded, if you can just- ssshtttt -ight stand a chance!"_

There's a telling silence from the dock and Sam swears beneath his breath, throwing himself forward those last few lurching steps until the tar finally gives way a little, sinking below the level of his knees. He digs his heels into the stones and runs. The tar is is shallower here, but it still oozes down the side of the docks, covering everything in a shifting layer of black. The ladder is almost invisible beneath it

_"Sam, did you hear me- zhhstt - you have to- chssttt -to the loading bay!"_

Sam sinks his hand into the tar, reaching blindly for the ladder. It's bitingly cold, wet and clinging as it swallows his arm. For a moment he grasps at nothing. Then his fingers brush a rung of the ladder and Sam claws his fingers around it, dragging himself up. "Got it." Sam grunts. "What box?"

_"-umber 15, marked biohazardous- zhht -e careful, Sam."_

There's a wet noise behind him, the tar slurping as something lurches into motion, and Sam drags himself up, rolling over onto the top of the dock even as three long arms collide with the side of the dock, making the entire thing shudder, the rusted metal of the ladder shrieking as it's torn asunder, landing in the tar almost a dozen meter away.

A dripping, black tentacle rises up over the edge of the dock even as Sam scrambles to his feet. He fumbles with one of the clasps on his belt, unclipping his water bottle, and hurls it back across the dock. It hits the tar with a wet splatter and explodes beneath the sudden force of three tentacles slamming down on top of it in quick succession, raining a shower of tar in all direction.

More appear over the side of the dock as the creature hauls itself up, writhing out across the surface of the dock, seeking, as it's golden mask appears over the edge. Sam runs.

It's after him in an instant, honing in on the sound of his movement. It's tentacles come whipping across the dock, lightening fast, sending sprays of tar in every direction. Sam doesn't look back even as the churning of the tar grows even louder, even closer - just fixes his eyes on the cargo and sprints. He lunges the last of the distance, coming sliding to a stop by the cargo even as a tentacle hits the wall above him, the force of it making chips of concrete rain down from above, the entire building shaking with the force of it.

Sam tears through the packages, seizing the right one, and rips it open even as the creature drags itself closer, it's arms writhing through the air, reaching for him. Sam's fingers are slick with tar, slippery, and it takes him two attempt to grab the first grenade. He rips the pin free with his teeth, throwing himself to the side as another tentacle comes slamming down only inches from his shoulder, and hurls the grenade.

There's a single deafening moment when the grenade is in the air, Sam's heartbeat thundering in his ears, absolutely certain that he'd missed.

The grenade goes off.

And Sam slumps backwards, legs losing their strength as he watches the creature jerk and twitch as chiral crystals burst forth from it's inky hide, every speck of skin that had been splattered by the grenade giving way to gleaming chiralium. It thrashes, caught in a silent scream, its many arms twisting and jerking as the chiral crystals spread. For a single moment it looks almost statuesque, a contorted mess of fractured gold frozen in the midst of it's death throes, and then it shatters, the chiral crystals collapsing beneath their own pull, rising into the sky.

Sam just sits there. Stares numbly as the tar starts to slowly seep away, disappearing back into the hell from whence it came. BB's crying is little more than terrified whimpering now and Sam puts a hand on his pod, unable to bring himself to say a single word.

There's still tar on his hands, on his face, his skin. It feels like its sunken into him, seeping right down to his bones, blackening his marrow and spilling into his bloodstream, clogging his veins with clinging black. He feels sick, crawling and nauseous and just- Tired. So very very tired.

He lets his head fall back against the wall. Waits for someone to come and find him.

* * *

Higgs, Seydoux calls him afterwards, a frosty note in her voice, and Sam supposes he doesn't have to wonder who he's looking for anymore.

There's a debriefing or something. Sam sits through it numbly, grunt answers to Die-Hardman's asks him something, then stands and walks right out the door the moment Die-Hardman turns his attention to Seydoux, the two of them quickly falling into intense debate about contingency plans and access to more hermatic grenades.

It takes him hours to scrub the tar from his skin, scouring his skin with blistering water and sanitizer until he feel's raw and red. He still doesn't still feel clean. Can still feel the chill of the tar on his skin, the creeping panic of the tar rising around his waist, higher and higher, sure that he's going to drown in it, swallow more tar with every attempted breath.

He can feel Higg's fingers on his skin. Can feel the weight of his arm around Sam's shoulder, the bite of his fingernails through his gloves on his jaw, the tight pinch of his fingers in Sam's hair. The skin prickles, phantom sensations playing again and again, so real that if Sam closes his eyes it almost feel's like Higgs is still there, breath sour against his cheek. He doesn't have to look to know there are new marks on his skin, every place Higg's touched him branded in damning white. His skin reacting to the touch the only way it knows how: complete rejection.

He pulls a blanket right off the bed, pulling it loosely around him, skin still wet from the shower, and cleans BB pod. He wipes away every smear of tar, chases every speck of dust and dirt that's gathered around the clasps. Anything to keep from closing his eyes and seeing the BTs reaching for him, cold fingers grasping at his legs, snagging on his pack, dragging him down-

Sam lets out a rough breath, fingers tightening around the pod. His breath is tight in his throat, threatening to catch and send him back down into the darkness. He can't think about the BTs. Can't think about drowning in tar, hands dragging him down. Can't think about how close he'd come to it again-

BB makes a low noise, tiny hands pressed up against the glass, and Sam sucks in a long breath. There's a tiny frown on his face, his eyes wide and concerned. And god, Sam doesn't know how he does it - doesn't know how he manages to see so much, when he's so small, so fragile. "I'm okay." He says hoarsely, meeting BB's eyes. He presses his forehead to the pod, drawing it close. 

Sam takes another slow breath, and focuses on trying not to shake apart. "I'm okay." He says again, and tries to ignore how much it feels like a lie. 

* * *

Seydoux meets him on the prow of _L'Endurance_ the next morning, looking over the lake. The boats hums beneath them, water sloshing gently against its side as it pulls out of dock. Sam watches Port Knot fall away, the numb tangle in his guts easing slightly as the docks finally fade from sight.

The new marks are a constant presence of his mind, a conscious sensation of prickling discomfort that never quite fades. Some marks fade after a few weeks. Other don't. Sam's not sure which these will be.

They stand in silence, Seydoux lost in her own thoughts and Sam all to happy to let the silence linger. He leans against the rail, arms folded on top of it, and stares out over the water, letting his thoughts stray. This far out the water is still and flat, glimmering golden in the morning light. It's almost easy to forget this lake only exists because a voidout killed several million people.

Seydoux break the silence, letting out a low sigh and turning away from the lake. Sam can't help it - he flinches when she moves. Seydoux goes still and silent for a moment, but eventually steps forward, wandering over to stand a few feet away. Sam doesn't look at her, but he can feel her watching, the gentle pressure of her gaze on his face, staring at the marks Higg's left there.

"Guess you don't have to wonder why I want him dead." Seydoux says eventually, leaning back against the rail.

Sam lets out an even breath, tightly controlled. BB shifts in his pod, a tiny flutter of awe coming up through the connection as he stares out at the water, and some of the tension in Sam shoulder's eases a little. His next breath comes easier. He shoots Seydoux a sideways look. "Still don't know what you expect me to do about it. If he can summon BT's like that every time I don't think I'm going to get far."

"And yet you killed it." Seydoux says. "First person to ever kill a BT - how does it feel?"

"Tiring." Sam says flatly.

"No doubt your name will go down in the history books." Seydoux replies dryly, her smile wry. The thought is well and truly horrifying, and Sam scrubs a hand across his face roughly, exhausted, even as Seydoux chuckles.

"I just want to be left alone." Sam says weakly, and Seydoux makes an amused noise.

"It's a bit too late for that. BRIDGEs has well and truly got its claws in you now." Seydoux says, her smile sharp. "I hear it was your blood they used to make the grenade. No doubt they're already planning on draining you dry."

Sam lets out a snort. As if that would be any help. A grenade might help against one or two BTs, but there are millions across America, and even more being made as more settlements succumb to the timefall. Every year there's another voidout, another settlement wiped off the map. Might as well throw drops of water at a burning house for all the good it'll do them. But that was BRIDGEs. Always fighting the impossible fight.

"We've all got our demons." Sam says, and Seydoux shoots him a sideways look.

"And BRIDGEs is yours?" She asks. He expression is neutral, but her eyes were sharp, amused. Sam wonders what would have happened if he'd met her six years ago - he would have liked her, he thinks. Might even have been friends.

"Same way Higgs is yours." Sam replies dryly. "We can never really escape them, can we?"

Seydoux makes a low noise, thoughtful. She turns, turning her gaze to the water. "No." She says eventually. "I suppose not."

"Guess I'd better do a good job then." Sam says. "I doubt Higgs will go down without a fight."

"Of course not." Seydoux makes an amused noise, bitter. "But you have one thing I dont."

Sam shoots her a sardonic look. "And whats that?"

"A dick." Seydoux leans back, the look in her eye sharp enough to cut glass. "Higgs can't standing not being the biggest fish in the pond. He expected you to be killed by that BT - you've surprised him. One upped him. He's not going to let you go until he's shown just who's boss. He'll be back, and when he does I'll be waiting."

"So I'm bait now. Great." Sam says, and Seydoux just shrugs.

"Dont worry. You wont die." She says. "Probably."

Sam makes an amused noise and turns his gaze back to the water. Let Higgs come for him. This time he'll be ready.


	7. Order No.19

Being out on the water is strange. He falls asleep to the sound of water sloshing against the hull and half expects to wake up in Roanoke.

He dreams of footprints in the sand, walking along the beach at Roanoke and feeling it stick between his toes. Lucy used to collect sea shells when the weather was fine, venturing out beyond the shelter just to feel the wind on her face and taste the salt in the air when no one else would dare. Sam would follow her, trailing half a step behind and watching her face light up whenever she found a new shell. They somehow always used to find their way into Sam's pockets.

"Thousands of years ago our ancestors cross the oceans, settling every corner of the world. Imagine it - just setting sail one morning, waking the next day to see a foreign shore." She'd told him once, her gaze fixed on the horizon. "We'll go there, one day. Walk the same shores they once did, back at the beginning of it all."

"Is that a promise?" Sam has asked, amused. He hadn't truly believed it, but he'd indulged her the idea. He always did.

"Of course." She smiled, slipping her hand in his and winding their fingers together.

Sam wakes slowly, his thoughts sluggish and lazy, and for a moment he can almost feel her hand still in his. He'd used to wonder where she would have ended up if she'd been born a hundred years before - no strandings or timefalls to hold her back.

She'd always been so certain that eventually things would work out - that someone, somewhere, would find out the cause of the Death Stranding, and that one day they be able to... Sam doesn't know. Fix it? Even just learn to live with it? She'd spoken of it like it was a certainty. It was the sort of attitude that set her in the path of BRIDGEs, that lead to her meeting Sam.

He wonders what she would have think of what he's doing now - the chiral network, connecting America. Would she have been here beside him, walking every step of the way? Would she have worked at Capital Knot, his comm buzzing every night as she called? Would she-

Sam cuts himself off, rolling over onto his back and staring up at the roof. He'll never know what she would have done. She's gone, and nothing will ever bring her back. Maybe, if he'd just been a little faster, if he hadn't accepted that extra delivery, had come back a few days early-

"Enough." He murmurs, dragging his hands over his face. He slips out of bed and yanks his suit back on, walking over to BB. He kneels by his side, giving the pod a gentle prod, smiling when BB gives a tremendous yawn, sucking on his thumb a couple of times as his eyes blink open, sleepy and confused. "Up and at'em, kid." Sam says, as BB uncurls, giving a little streatch, the sleepiness slowly fading from his eyes as he blinks up at Sam curiously. "Let's grab some food, have a look around the boat."

BB makes a happy burble as Sam attaches the pod, a burst of bubbling curiosity flooding through the connection. Sam lets it wash over him, steering his mind away from the last lingering thoughts of Lucy.

_What ifs_ have never helped him. Go too far down that rabbit hole and he might never find his way back out - Sam knows. He's done it far too many times before.

Instead he gives BB's pod a gentle tap, just to make him giggle, and heads out.

* * *

It takes almost a week to cross the lake, even with the boat at full speed.

Sam spends the first few days catching up on sleep, but eventually that begins to tire. By the fourth day it takes a concerted effort not to pace rings about the deck of this ship. Sam rarely has idle moments, hasn't had a proper break in years. He spends his time in constant motion, travelling hundreds of kilometers, lugging his own weight in cargo the whole way. He doesn't know what to do with himself without a delivery.

The only saving grace is that _L'Endurance_ is manned by a skeleton crew - just a few men to man the wheel and check any problems with the engine. Sam doesn't know what Seydoux told them, but they keep to themselves, and hours can go by without Sam spotting a single one of them. He's stupidly glad for it. He doesn't think he could bear being trapped on the boat with a whole crowd of passengers.

For her part, Seydoux comes and goes, vanishing without a word for hours on end only to reappear in one of the halls with a soft crack. He doesn't know where she goes and he doesn't ask. Business probably. Fragile Express is one of the last remaining large shipping companies, and the only one to offer transcontinental services - just keeping it functioning probably requires all of Seydoux's efforts.

Makes him wonder why she's wasting her time here on _L'Endurance_. Could be a holiday, Sam supposes, but the truth is she's probably here keeping an eye on him. It's a fifty-fity on whether she thinks Higgs is going to come back again so soon or whether she just doesn't trust a member of BRIDGEs on her boat unsupervised. Either way, Sam can't say he blames her.

It's raining when Sam stumbles across her standing at one of the balconies, watching the water from beneath the cover of the deck. Her umbrella rests against her shoulder, it's plates folded closely together, silent and unblinking for the first time Sam can remember. Her logo is printed across the back of her jacket, skeletal fingers spread across her shoulderblades like wings, collar shut tightly high on her neck.

"You must have questions." Seydoux says eventually, not looking away from the water.

Sam shrugs. "Not really."

That earns a look, her surprise visible in the lines of her brow, the most minute of frowns. "None?" She asks, sounding almost bemused. "Not about Middle Knot? About Higgs? This?" She gestures at her jacket, the leather that covers every inch of her skin.

Sam meets her with an even look. "Maybe you did blow up Middle Knot. Maybe you didn't. If you did it will probably catch up with you some day." Sam sighs, shruggs. "As for Higgs, he probably deserves it."

Seydoux make an amused noise. "Some might call you callous, speaking like that."

Sam drags his fingers through his hair, sighing. "Not really. I can't afford to throw stones. It would be easier, I guess, if we could pretend it was all black and white. But it's not. Life's more complicated than that."

Seydoux watches him for a moment, then turns back to look over the lake, her expression thoughtful. She's quiet for a long moment, lost in her own thoughts, and Sam let's the silence sit between them.

"There's something about the sight of it - rain on water." Seydoux says eventually, fingers curling around the rail of the ship. She raises one hand, holding it out, and a spatter of timefall hisses on her gloved fingertip. "Circles within circles, all colliding, echoing back endlessly, and yet all swallowed back into stillness after a few moments, not a single sign they ever existed. Makes you wonder what it's all worth."

"Sort of bleak way of looking at it." Sam says, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

Seydoux makes an amused noise. "Maybe." She turns to Sam. "What would you say then?"

"It's pretty." Sam says simply, and Seydoux laughs.

"Yes." She agrees, staring out over the lake. "I suppose it is."

Sam just hums, letting his gaze follow hers. There's something there, a weight to her gaze that speaks of more than just aesthetic sensitibilties weighing on her mind. If the rumors about her are true, Sam's not surprised she has a thing about timefall.

Seydoux says nothing more, her expression thoughtful and distant. Sam leaves her there, staring out at the rain. He wonders what it is that seems to make him so talkative around her. Maybe it's her own tendency to silence, to amused observation, tempered by indifference. Maybe it's the shadow in her eyes - there's anger there, guilt, and the same haunted resignation he recognizes all to well from the mirror. Seydoux understands what it means to pull yourself back together from nothing, to hold the shattered pieces together and know that there are wounds that time can never heal.

There's a reason she didn't ask about his aphenphosmophobia, when so many people do. It's the same reason he'll never ask why she covers herself, hiding every slither of skin.

Prod too much and the wounds just get deeper, and there's too little left of them to risk losing any more.

* * *

Touching back down on dry land is a relief. Lake Knot city is almost as big as Capital, and they rejoice as he connects them to the network. A crowd had gathered to watch, cheers erupting as the networks finally comes online, and Sam escapes to a private room before someone can come try and thank him.

There's a report from Deadman waiting for him on the terminal when he gets there. Sam opens it cautiously, not quite sure what to expect, only to still as he reads the first line. He crosses to the bed and sits, starting again from the top. Deadman had talked about looking into BB's history, but after a few weeks has passed Sam had figured he'd hit a dead end and given it up.

_Before being assigned to Igor Frank in 2043, BB-28 was assigned to Samantha Hans, a porter operating out of North Knot. She was assigned it from the general equipment pool in 2041 after it's last user died from pneumonia. The records get patchy before that._ 😓

_Best I can see, it got passed around a lot. BB-28 has functional problems, so no one kept it long. Those that did were usually porters and you know what the mortality rate is like. It's records must be scattered across half a dozen different Knots. I'm not able to get anything more from Capital Knot's databases, but as new Knots are connected I get access to their records. I'll keep you updated on what I find._

_Your dear friend,_

_Deadman_ 👍👍

_PS. Make sure to get your cuff checked out every now and then! Your vital transmissions are getting a bit patchy when you're outside the network. Wouldn't want you to have an accident out there without us being able to send help!_ 😄

Sam slumps back on the bed, letting out a long sigh, and glances at BB. "You really are a mystery, aren't you?"

BB just smiles at him, sucking on his thumb. Sam huffs. "Course it wouldn't be that easy."

Sam reads the message one last time, chewing on the inside of his lip, and then sighs and sits up. Deadman's going out his way to try and help him, and as much as it grates, Sam needs his help. He's not half as familiar with the databases as Deadman is, wouldn't even know where to start trying to dig up this sort of information, and even if he did he has only occasional access to the network and a fraction of the access privileges.

_Got your message. I'll look at the cuff. Let me know what else you find._

He sends it before he can talk himself out of it, then mutes his cuff and stands, heading off to find Seydoux.

* * *

Connect South Knot, they say. Connect the preppers. Delivery important materials there. Bring this back there. Finished? Oh, good, we have another delivery for you.

Sam hoists his cargo higher on his shoulders, rocks shifting uneasily below his feet, feeling his pack bite into his shoulders. There's a low ache in the curve of his spine that's becoming intimately familiar, one he knows won't go away for hours even after he's taken the cargo off. People always say life as a porter must be so freeing, and Sam thinks bitterly that none of those people had ever had to lug 400kg of cargo across an entire mountain range.

Even with two carries clanking alone behind him, he's overloaded, and god forgive he run into any MULEs because right now he's barely crawling along. He wouldn't make it three meters before they ran him down, and fighting MULEs rarely turns out well. They never travel alone and their stun volleys have a nasty bite. This loaded down, Sam wouldn't last two minutes.

Which is fucking great, because every major road south of Lake Knot is absolutely swarming with MULEs. Fragile Express and the other porter companies have managed to keep a lot of settlements afloat on this side of the lake, and the MULEs are drawn to it like flies to honey, setting up ambushes along the main porter routes and growing fat on the spoils.

Travelling anywhere alone is dangerous, and travelling off route is even more-so. The risk of stumbling into an unmarked stranding is too great, and most porters prefer to travel along routes where they know they can find shelter if a sudden timefall starts up.

Sam is an oddity among porters like that - he cut his teeth on rural delivery, travelling through some of the harshest, most isolated landscapes the west coast could offer, going weeks in the open to deliver a single package. It's why people trust him with their cargo, 'cause they know he'll scale half a fucking mountain to keep it out of the hands of the MULEs. It why BRIDGEs is willing to load him up with their most crucial deliveries and send him off alone, when no sane porter would ever accept half the risk, let alone half the weight.

Not that Die-Hardman would take kindly to Sam trying to say no. Even halfway across the continent Sam has no doubt that Die-Hardman has ways of making his life a living hell if he starts making a fuss. 

BB lets out a curious burble, giggling as a cryptobiote wriggles past his pod. Sam plucks it out of the air, crunching it between his teeth, and grins when BB's eyes go wide, thumb falling from his mouth. A flood of sheer delight bubbles up through the connection as BB presses his hands up against the glass and wriggles, pawing in the direction of the nearest cryptobiote and demanding Sam do it again.

Sam chuckles, hoisting his pack higher and ignoring the raw sting of the straps on his shoulders as he reaches for another cryptobiote. He holds it near the pod, BB's face going awed that the sight of all it's wriggling legs, before popping it in his mouth to the sound of BB's delighted giggles.

It's almost worth the taste of the damn things.

* * *

The preppers are each more hostile and isolationist than the last. None refuse the packages he brings, but none are happy to see him and they let him know it. The crotchety old man on top of the mountain had looked ready to set his turrets on him, and Sam hadn't bothered to stick around to listen to the rest of his tyraid.

So he didn't want to join the UCA? Good for him, Sam didn't want to either. It was just his job to delivery the damn packaged and make the offer to join the connection, not to be some sort of- fucking figurehead for the UCA. Let Die-Hardman ream him out. They couldn't pay him enough to make him stand there are extol BRIDGEs virtues.

What few settlements there are are wary and guarded, cautious about letting any stranger in, even one bearing the logo of both BRIDGEs and Fragile Express. Sam doesn't blame them. There's news of new settlements falling to the Separatists every other month - they're right to be scared, and wise to be wary of strangers.

Doesn't stop BRIDGEs from sending him to knock on all of their doors anyway, Die-Hardman plucking him off the route south to detour past every bunker and settlement that might show even the faintest inclination of joining the network, as well as every other settlement that doesn't.

Takes him more than a month to make it to South Knot Distribution, and in that time he can count on one hand the number of preppers who'd actually asked to join the network. If anything, Sam finds those preppers the most disconcerting. They were too grateful, too awed. Thanks spilled easily over their lips, rambling promises of trying to find a way to pay him back for what he's done for them, and Sam flees as soon as the connection is established, their gaze a burning weight on his back.

It probably says something about him that he'd rather spend a night sleeping out in the open, timefall be damned, than spend another minute in their company. They looked at Sam like he's a- Like he's a fucking hero or something. He isn't.

Sam is no ones fucking hero. And the sooner everyone remembers that, the better.

"You're lucky." Sam says, shooting an envious look at BB. "No one expects you to make polite conversation. They never try to thank you, do they?"

BB blinks at him, mouthing at his thumb, and Sam nods. "That's what I thought.

* * *

It's rare when meeting a prepper doesn't make him want to run for the hills. There's a fine line between bristling aggression and cloying admiration, one that very few people seem to fall on. For the most part Sam prefers to make his on way regardless - he has little interest in spending any significant amount of time in anyone's company, and even less interest in being someone's guest, but every now and then he bends his own rules.

It's been a hard slog getting down the canyon, and if he leaves now he wont make it even a third of the way back before he loses the light. Sam will openly admit he's anti-social, but he's not so stubborn that he'd risk breaking his own neck when the prepper's offering a bed for the night.

Wei Zheng's a strange one - friendly enough, as far as Sam can tell, but her bunker is also one of the most isolated Sam has been sent to, more than a week of hard walking from the nearest Knot. Her shelter is much too large for just one person, but she's found ways of spilling the space. Entire rooms are filled with greenery, lush and verdant and overflowing over every walkway. Deep beds have been dug into the floor, filled with loamy earth, big enough to give root to entire tree's, which rise to crowd against the ceiling, branches spilling down through the space like living umbrellas.

The sound of trickle of water is constant, meticulously maintained hydroponic systems plastered across every wall, hosting creeping plants and ferns that spill down into the open air. It looks like one of the Capital Knot species conservation-centers, an eclectic mix of plants all thriving together, the last vestiges of functionally-extinct species eking a living in this tiny shelter hidden in the foothills.

Sam breaths in deeply, the rich sent of earth and water cool and humid in his throat. "Feel free to take a shower." Zheng says, waving him down a walkway, before striding off in the other direction, heading back to her office. Sam shoots a glance after her, surprised. Most preppers would hesitate to invite a porter in, let alone let them wander unsupervised through their shelter, but he gets the feeling Zheng has little patience for common things like social niceties or reasonable paranoia.

She disappears down a walkway, and for a moment Sam is left staring after her dumbly. Then he shakes himself, glancing about. There's a flicker of movement from the plants to his left, and he glances down to find a blackbird staring up at him, frozen in the act of picking through the dirt. It's eyes are wet and black, unblinking as it stares at him boldly. Then in a flutter of wings it's gone, disappearing back into the undergrowth. 

Sam huffs, turning back down the path. It's feels strange poking through someone else's space, but Zheng hadn't given him any better directions than _that way_ , so Sam peers into every doorway he passes until her finally finds the bathroom. Most are cultivation rooms, overrun with greenery, but he passes a library, books piled wall to wall, and what looks like looks like a research laboratory.

The bunker is utterly quiet save for the trickle of water and the faint scratching of the blackbirds in the underground, undercut by the low hum of the energy systems and the pipes pumping water to the hydroponics system. It's... strange. Being in someones home, and yet still being utterly alone, and Sam finds himself caught in the awkward space between unwittingly starting to relax and stubbornly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It's a relief to lock the bathroom door behind him, some of the tension releasing from his shoulders once he knows he's well and truly alone. Zheng hasn't spared the bathroom either, ferns cascading from every free surface, leaves still damp with the humidity of the room's last use. Sam eases out of his gear, rubbing his aching shoulders as he strips the top of his suit, letting it hang around his waist.

BB burbles at him from on the bathroom counter, caught up in the fascinating process of patting at the fern fronds resting against his pod through the glass. He wriggles, letting out a pleased noise, only to burble delightedly when the movement sets his pod rocking a little and makes the ferns shift against the glass.

Sam smiles, shooting him a fond look, and then steps into the shower, letting out a groan when the hot water comes on. He breaths in the steam, letting his head fall back as the pounding heat of the water loosens some of the tension in his back, easing the dull ache that had made itself at home between the plates of his vertebrae.

He his hands through his hair, working out the last tangled knots as he casts his eye over the bottles crowded on the shelf. He picks a shampoo almost at random, giving it a sniff, and then deals himself a generous handful, working it through his hair until later runs down his shoulders and the whole shower smells faintly of rosewood. It stings faintly as it hits the tracks on his shoulders, but Sam can't bring himself to give a shit, enjoying the chance to just stand there and relax for a moment.

He stays in the shower for as long as he dares, poking through Zheng's collection of soaps until he finds something smooth and smokey, smelling faintly of cinnamon. When he gets out BB's pod is fogged up with steam, and Sam leans over, clinching the towel around his waist as he wipes a window in the steam. BB blinks at him, pressing his face right up against the hole, letting out a delighted burble, and Sam chuckles beneath his breath before wiping the rest of it away, leaving BB to gawk at the ferns once more as he takes a seat on the toilet lid and towels his hair.

He leaves the towel hanging around his shoulders and he pokes through his pack, finally finding the small pottle of medicinal balm. It stings as he applies it to his shoulders, rubbing it into the reddened skin, a few of abrasions flushing red and threatening to start beading at the pressure. He lets it, turning his attention to his legs, rubbing a bit of balm into the skin around his ankles and heels where his boots have started to hear. He can't remember the last time he'd had his shoulders torn up for so long continuously. It used to happen occasionally, always did on offroad deliveries with heavy cargo, but it used to be a rare incidence. These days Sam can't remember the last time his shoulders weren't raw and bloody.

He glances at his boots and sighs. He's going to need another pair soon. Just hope's they'll last him until he gets back to South Distribution. Then he just has to break in the new pair, joy of joys.

Sam slips on a pair of loose trousers and one of his spare shirts, not bothering with the rest of his gear, and gathers the rest of his things back into his pack. If he has any luck Zheng will have a sanitizer she'll be willing to let him borrow. It'd been a while since he had the chance to properly clean all his gear.

"You like that, huh?" Sam says, wandering over to collect BB. BB's peering at the ferns again, his tiny head swiveling back and forward, eyes wide and curious, never leaving the frilly fingers of the fern stuck wet to the glass. "I'd get you one, but we don't have a place to keep it. First timefall would tear it to bits."

BB makes a happy burble as Sam picks him up, tucking the pod against his chest as he shrugs his pack onto one shoulder. He doesn't bother with his boots, trying them to the clip on his back instead and wandering barefoot back out into the hall. The metal walkways are cool beneath his skin, grate pressing lines against the soles of his feet, but Sam can't find he minds it. BB's eyes track every plant they pass, patting at the glass whenever he spots something in bloom, and Sam finds himself smiling, watching it fondly.

"It's a nice collection, isn't it?" He asks, sidestepping a thick waxy plant who's leaves spilled out over the path. "She's a botanist or something. Works with plants."

Zheng's in her laboratory when he finds her, the box of samples he'd brought her open on the bench beside her. She glances up from her microscope as he stops by the doorway, but doesn't stop working, turning over each seed gently with a pair of tweezers as she inspects it for damage.

Sam stands there silently, waiting, as she finishes the last seeds of the batch, gently rolling the seeds out onto a tray of damp cotton wool. "They're all viable." She says, taking the tray and walking across to the incubator. Half a dozen other trays are already there, most bearing small seedlings, but two new. "No fungal contamination. No timefall degradation. No water or heat damage. Good." She says, finally turning to him.

Sam shrugs. "It's what I'm paid for."

Zheng snorts, unbottoning her labcoat and tossing it over the back of her chair. "That's what they all say, and yet half my deliveries are contaminated when they arrive."

Sam steps out of the way, letting her stride past, and falls into step behind her as she takes a turn down the corridor, leading him into a cramped kitchen. "Tea?" She asks, already putting the water on, and Sam shakes his head. She makes a dismissive noise, pulling out a pot anyway and gently doling in two spoonfuls of dark leaf from a jar on the shelf.

"I suppose you want food." She says, leaning back against the counter as she waits for the water to boil. There are crowsfeet around her eyes, but only make her gaze look sharper. She gives him a quick once-over, looking at him properly for the first time since she arrived, and Sam leans against the door and lets her.

"I've got my own." He says, shrugging the shoulder with his pack on it, but she scoffs.

"Rations. You know what the nutritional content of those things are? Oh its got everything you need supposedly, but god forgive they do a long term study of the dietary effects even after putting half the damn population on the stuff." Zheng says, throwing open her fridge and yanking out a couple of tupperware containers. She doesn't wait for Sam's response before tossing half the contents a pan, the sound of sizzling oil soon filling the room.

"I suppose you're wanting to connect me to the network." Zheng says a minute or two later, tossing the vegetables with a practiced flip of her wrist.

Sam makes a non-committal noise. "If you want."

"BRIDGEs has been here before. They send me every new species they can get their hands on, and I propagate them, send them seed back. Safer not to have all your eggs in one basket." Zheng says, adding a generous helping of pickled cabbage to the pan, the smell of chili soon filling the air. "They've been talking about a network for years. Didn't think they'd ever actually get off their asses and do it."

Sam doesn't have anything to say to that, so he doesn't. He stands by the door silently until Zheng hauls the pan off the stove, dishing it into two plates and sliding one across the table towards him. She doesn't wait for him, sitting down on the far side and digging into her own bowl. After a second he takes the seat across from her, dragging the bowl closer and grabbing a fork. He sets BB on the table, the glass screened, insides hidden, but Zheng barely gives it a glance.

The eat the meal in silence, and at the end of it Zheng serves the tea, sipping at her own cup even as Sam's sits empty in front of him, untouched. "Whats the news from Capital Knot? I heard Central Knot had a voidout a few months ago."

"Body went necro." Sam says, turning the cup back and forth between his hands. It's fine porcelain, pale white with just the faintest tinge of blue, it's surface smooth and clean. Zheng doesn't comment on the fact he hasn't touched a single drop of actual tea. "Some kid. He committed suicide and they didn't find him till two days later. We were taking him to the incinerator but..." Sam trails off, grim.

Zheng crosses her arms, letting out a bitter noise as she takes another sip of her tea. "World's all sorts of fucked up these days."

"I guess." Sam says, leaning back in his chair. "They suspected it might have been a Separatist plant but-" He shrugs. "Not really much to go on anymore. The blast wiped the whole city."

Zheng sighs, her smiled jaded and brittle. "There's so few of us left these days. Makes you wonder why the Separatists even bother."

"Someone could say the same for you." Sam says, nodding in the direction of the greenhouses. "A lot of people don't see the point anymore these days."

Zheng's laugh isn't a pleasant one, but she raises her cup all the same, giving Sam a mocking toast. "You're not wrong. Habit, I suppose. It's what I was trained for, and after the Death Stranding... Guess I just kept going. Don't know what I'd be doing if I wasn't doing this."

Sam makes a neutral noise, rolling the cup back and forth between his hands. Zheng sips at her tea for a long moment, the click of her cup on the table and the trickle of her tea pot the only disruption to the silence.

"It seemed a waste." Zheng says finally. "People spent years gathering species in the face of climate chance, scrabbling to preserve everything they could get their hands on. Some people devoted their entire lives to it - and for what? Half of those seed banks were destroyed in the voidouts, and now we can't plant any of it, even if we could get access. The ecosystem is never going to recover from the timefall, not as we know it."

"But you're still here." Sam says. It's strange, what people cling to at the end of the world. Many people just give up, the despair swallowing them piece by piece until there's nothing left but wretched resignation. Other's fight with a determination that's almost possessed, holding onto each and every tiny thing they can even at the cost of their own lives. He can't quite tell which Zheng is.

"But I'm still here." Zheng agrees. "I suppose it's because I can. I have the training, the means... No one else was going to."

"Never thought of moving to one of the cities?" Sam asks. Few people managed to live in such isolation, let alone while trying to maintain an operation of this size. No doubt she would receive a warm welcome in any Knot, her skills more than enough to earn her a place anywhere she might choose to go.

Zheng just shake her head, her smile tired and worn. "I wouldn't know how to live in a city. I've been here for a long time, and anyway, its where my greenhouses are. Where my family is buried."

"Yeah." Sam says, his voice quiet, solemn. "I can understand that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's face it, Sam's only self care is showers. That and hot springs. Honestly tho, only Kojima could make someone care so much about making sure that Sam can just take a moment to enjoy a damn shower. I am unrepentant. Sam needs good things in life.


	8. Order No.27

He connects Zheng to the network early the next morning, when the sun's still in the process of rising up over the hills. She stands at the door to her shelter, arms crossed, watching him with a stern expression, the small upwards tilt of her lips betraying her amusement.

Sam tucks the qupid back into his shirt, quickly poking at BB's pod to make sure everything properly secured before hoisting his pack more firmly, feeling the straps settle into the tracks they've worn into his shoulders. Sam sends a glance towards Zheng. "Any parcels?"

Die-Hardman sent him his orders this morning. They're finally sending him south, heading towards the Weather Station before he finally starts towards South Knot. It's going to be a hard slog - at least two weeks to make it to the Weather Station, but he can swing another delivery on the way.

"No such luck." Zheng replies dryly, and Sam just nods. He rolls his shoulders, getting the back comfortable, and double checks his laces aren't going to come loose and leave him with a broken ankle. He doesn't waste anymore time than that, giving Zheng one last brisk nod before stepping out from under the eave of the shelter.

He doesn't make it more than a couple of steps before Zheng's voice stops him. "Take care of yourself out there, Porter. Shame to lose service like you."

Sam raises one hand, giving half a wave over his shoulder, but keeps walking. He hears Zheng chuckle, and then the hiss of the shelter door sliding shut, locks clicking into place. 

The air is brisk, fresh, and it's only going to get colder as he heads deeper into the mountains. Sam puts one foot in front of the other and turns his head towards the hills. "Back on the road, huh?" Sam says, glancing at BB. BB burbles, confused but happy, and Sam nods. "Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too. Always liked mountain work."

* * *

Theoretically, the timefall reduces everything to a barren wasteland. Plants burn themselves out with every smattering of rain, life-cycles that should take years to complete passing in the span of minutes, sudden surges of life followed by equally violent deaths. The rain strips everything away, weathering the rock right down to its very foundations, until everything that's left is unrecognizable - rendered ancient. Primordial.

The single most catastrophic geological event the world has ever seen, every drizzle and shower grinding everything into so much more dust.

The truth of it is that, wasteland or not, it's so much more than just barren rock. No two landscapes weather the same, the tiniest variation in the chemical composition of the stone enough to sending things spinning down a different trajectory.

Back on the west coast the time-fall carved the land into rolling hills, studded with jagged boulders and woven with streams that trickle across the land, splitting and joining again around the bend of every rise. Here, jagged, rocky foothills give way to harsh mountains, their faces severe and unforgiving, softened by banks of snow that give everything a sort of stark beauty, all downy white on fractured faces of black stone.

Plains stretch from from their feet, a patchy landscape of exposed bedrock and swaying grasses, left knee-high and lush by the last timefall, roots sinking greedily into freshly churned soil. They go as far as the eye can see, occasionally rising and falling over the carcasses of what might once have been hills, giving way to the occasional sharp drop where the plains crack, deep canyons carving angular patterns deep into the landscape.

And amongst it - trees. Clusters of ancient redwoods pressed up against the side of the mountains, so colossal and slow growing that even the timefall can't knock them out. Trees, true trees, are rare these days, considered by most to be largely extinct outside the closely-guarded bounds of the Knot Gardens and species conservation centers. 

Sam supposes it's inspiring in a way. The Death Stranding wrecked destruction unlike anything the human race has ever seen, and yet in the face of it some things survive. Unbowed, unbroken, reaching proudly towards the skies.

Extinct. But not yet dead. Defiant until the end.

Sam reckons people could learn a thing or two from that.

* * *

Fifteen days to reach the Weather Station, including the two Sam spent sitting under a rockshelter, waiting for the pounding of the timefall to finally ease.

Sometimes it's worth just braving through it, when the delivery is urgent or there's no shelter to be found. But sometimes it's just asking for an accident. All cargo these days is timefall resistant, made from the most durable alloys people've managed to find, but give it long enough and even that will degrade. Venturing into timefall is always a risk. All it would take is one tear in his suit, one stumble when the visibility is a little too poor, a broken ankle stranding him out in the open and.... Well. There wouldn't be much left to find afterwards.

So Sam sits under the shelter of the rockface, listening to the pounding of the rain, the faint but desperate rustle of plants writhing to life and dying again just as suddenly, and he waits. He pours over his maps, updates signs about new streams that have formed, rockslides along the mountain face, and catches up on his mission logs.

Die-Hardman, at least, will thank him for his reports. Or at least he'll stop bitching about Sam never handing any of them in. Ah well. Better late than never.

The Weather Station greets him late on the fifteenth day, when Sam finally trudges in from the wilderness. The great satellite disks are visible from miles away, and Sam find himself wondering how the station has avoided a Separatists raid - and finds his question answered when he finally reaches the border of scanners and turrets whir to life, tracking his every step for the time it takes the station to verify his ID. A moment later the turret deactivate, sinking back into the ground, and Sam finds himself shooting them a wary looks as he makes his way to the main hanger. Seems BRIDGEs has spared no expense at ensuring the Weather Station won't be disturbed.

Just as well, he supposes. With the amount of equipment here the Weather Station is a tempting target for any raider, and if anything happens Sam doubts BRIDGEs will be able to easily replace it, short of sending out a whole second expedition.

Weatherstone is alright, as far as people go. He checks the delivery and confirms the connections successfully established, then he leaves Sam to it, not bothering to spare more than a curt not of thanks. There were maybe half a dozen people left to manage the Weather Station, given the gargantuan task of getting it all up and running, and now that they've finally got the last piece they needed to connect their system it's all hands on board. They barely spare Sam a glance, too engrossed in doing the final calibrations and adjustments needed to get the system online, and Sam's all to happy to leave them to it.

Die-Hardman's new orders come in early the next morning. _Head south,_ it reads. _It's time to connect South Knot._

* * *

Sam rarely sleeps well. Maybe its a hold-over from his years on the road, always keeping one eye open for trouble. When Sam is feeling optimistic that's what he tells himself anyway.

The truth is that Sam hasn't slept through the night since his first repatriation. There'd been a time, with Lucy, when he'd thought it was getting better, when he'd been able to lie down and lose his eyes and think _maybe not this time_. He'd never actually managed it, but it somehow felt better with Lucy there beside him, her voice low and soft in his ear as she talked him through it. He'd had hope, maybe, that someday he might sleep and make it through the night.

After Roanoke Sam was lucky if he got three hours in a row. It was easier, somehow, when he was on the road, when every hour put another mile between him and the aching crater of what had once been a town, a home. Easier to silence the voices in his head and numb the images carved into the backs of his eyelids when he was on the road. Easier to sleep when he was weighed down by exhaustion, slipping off into an exhausted daze before the memories could crowd close and drag him under.

It's better now. Ish. Sam's gotten used to the soft glow of BBs pod, the feeling of the fuzzy edges of his mind brushing against Sam's through the connection. There are good nights with BB, when the foreign proximity of his thoughts is enough to prod Sam from spiraling into another nightmare, when he can wake up after five hours without his heart pounding in his throat and a cold sweat running down his back. And maybe it's sad, but it's been years since Sam has been able to sleep so well.

The nightmares never really go away, but its easier to shake them off with BB there, staring at him with wide, concerned eyes, the muted flutter of his thoughts like a beacon in Sam's mind, a foothold against the darkness that threatens to swallow him whole. If Sam's mind is a sea in storm, battered on all sides by memories threatening to drag him down, then BB is the lighthouse that reminds him that somewhere out there there is a shore.

But sometimes even that is not enough. Sam dreams of reaching hands, of tar splattered on his ankles, clawed fingers pinching at his skin. He dreams of gasping for breath and tar spilling into his mouth, thick and cold and choking. He dreams of a voice in his ear, so soft and gentle, loving, and of fingers wrenching his hair back, Higgs' eyes red with burst blood vessels as he whispers in his ear, hand coming to rest of the back of his neck, like Lucy's once had. Higgs grins, tar spilling between his teeth. _It's time Sam, don't you know they've been waiting for you?_

The hands around him tighten, nails scouring lines down his arms, his legs, as the tar finally spills over his face and he drowns, a thousand hands dragging him down.

Sam wakes up cold, his skin prickling with the sensation of phantom hands, and doesn't have to look to know that the places Higgs touched him are white and prickling, mapping every violation like scars cut into his skin. They'd faded somewhat, but Sam doesn't doubt they now as stark as they day he'd received them. He presses his hands into his face, sucking in a ragged breath, and waits for the trembling of his hands to fade away.

Nightmares always leave him feeling shaken, so he'll be forgiven for taking a second to realize the fear he's feeling isn't only his own.

A sudden flash illuminates the cave for a split-second, and a moment later the rolling grumble of thunder follows. A sudden wave of fear floods up through the connection, sharp and terrified, and BB whimpers, curling in on himself, eyes pressed tightly closed. His fear is like a living thing in the back of Sam's mind, small and quivering, surging with every rumble of thunder, and now that he's noticed it its easier to separate from his own, to take a step back and feel where its coming from.

BB keeps making small distressed noises with every howl of the storm, and Sam ends up rocking his pod gently, trying to settle him. "Guess everyone's scared of something." Sam muses, even as BB leans into him, curling up against the glass as close to Sam as he can get.

BB flinches at another lightning strike and Sam starts humming tunelessly. He was never very good at singing, but the lullaby comes easily to him. _"See the sun set. The day is end-ing. Let that yawn out..."_

After a few minutes BB relaxes, his whimpers slowly quieting, but Sam doesn't stop for a long while.

* * *

South Knot is a dismal sight. The Death Stranding hit the region hard, the timefalls kicking it while it was down, and the result is a landscape that looks like it came out of someone's nightmares. Craggy hills give away to rocky plain constantly shrouded in a cloud of dust, littered with the remains of the old city; grand highways broken and crumbling in on themselves, the wreckage's of old buildings moldering in the open, casting mountainous, contorted shadows through the haze. There's an almost perpetual drizzle, clouds hanging low, the gloom giving the air an almost amber tone.

It's an inhospitable place. The air stings on every inhale, arid and acidic, and the ruins hide isolated strandings, poor soul who met their fate during the destruction of the old city. Amongst the rain and dust, the visibility is low. Wander off the path and there's a good risk you won't be able to find it again.

South Knot's scanner start analyzing him almost fifty meters before the gate itself, and Sam supposes the caution is warranted this close to Separatist territory. Sam doesn't put up a fuss, just stands there and lets it scan him. Three weeks since he left the Weather Station, the biggest portion of which was spent traversing the rocky hills, dragging his cargo-loaded ass over miles and miles of craggy outcroppings.

He's exhausted, grouchy, and covered in what feels like a metric-fuckton of mud. He draws odd looks as he wanders in, but those abate as soon as people spot the qupid, their faces lighting up at the sight of it. Sam connects the network, delivers the package, and then doesn't hang around, heading straight for the nearest private room to take a long, roasting hot shower, dragging BB in with him to wash the dirt from his pod.

BB makes a delighted noise as the water washes over his pod, giggling as Sam scrubs away the grime that's accumulated in all the curves and crannies of the pod with the corner of a towel. When he's done he props BB's pod against the shower wall, half inside the spray, and chuckles as BB immediately presses his hands to the glass, mouth open in an awed O as he watches the border where the water washes over the pod.

Sam watches his hair, scrubbing the dirt from his skin until the water starts coming away clean, shooting glances at BB every now and then to make sure he's still having fun. When he's finally done he gives BB's pod a quick swirl with a towel, grinning when it makes him shriek with laughter, and then flops back on the bed. He towels at his hair idly as he checks his comm, flicking through all the latest updates from BRIDGEs.

There's a couple of new messages. An update from Deadman, still no news on the BB front. A message from Lake Knot, thanking him for getting the specimens to Zheng undamaged - apparently that's a rarity, and they appreciate it. Sam skims through it, deleting it after a brief glance, and taps open the message from Seydoux.

_Sam Porter,_

_The passenger vessels have started their route across the lake. There's only a small clientele so far, but more BRIDGEs members are passing through as the weeks go on. Might actually have a decent stream of customers if this keeps up._

_BRIDGEs gave me access to their files on the Separatists. They don't have much about Higgs, but the information about suspected bases may prove useful. I've heard you're in the south now. There's known Separatist activity down there, so keep your eyes peeled. If you hear anything let me know._

_Pleasant hunting,_

_Fragile Seydoux_

Which isn't really anything Sam doesn't already know, but he appreciates the warning nonetheless. _Will do._ He types, and sends it off without bothering to sign. It's not the first message Seydoux has sent him. She keeps him abreast of any known Separatist activity in his region and any rumors of Higgs, which Sam supposes is her way of making sure he's on the scent.

He has one final message, a missive from Die-Hardman. Sam had left it for last, hoping that it would somehow delete itself from his inbox before he got around to it, but no luck. It's brisk, as Die-Hardman's correspondence always is, but then Sam doesn't really expect anything else.

_Stop by Mama's laboratory before taking any more deliveries. Cooperate with anything she asks. I'll let you know what your next mission is._

"Well." Sam says, reading over the message one more time. "That's not ominous at all."

Bad enough that BRIDGEs has been demanding samples from him every time he stops at a Knot, bleeding him dry and collecting, well, just about everything they can collect from him. Maybe it should disconcert him more, but people have been running tests on him since his first repatriation, trying to find out just what makes him tick. Sam's used to it.

Still, being sent to an actual lab is a new one. He'll just have to hope Mama doesn't plan on keeping him there.

* * *

For a moment he thinks he's heading in the wrong direction, but no, his cuff is insistent. Sam shoots another long look at the pile of rubble before him, piled almost a dozen meters high and groaning faintly in the wind. Looking closely he can almost see the different floors of the collapse building, all sandwiched together and slumping down in a precariously balanced heap. Here the ground clinks not with pebbles, but with broken glass, the earth stained red with rust.

Mama's lab is somewhere in that, apparently, and Sam wonders idly why he even bothers being surprised these days. He circles the building, ducking under arcing pieces of rubble and glancing at his map every few steps. There's a faint light shining from the around the corner and as he approaches it resolves itself into an pair of hanger doors.

They come alive before Sam can approach, sliding open. "Come in, Sam." Mama says, her voice pitched with a low whine of static through the comms. "I've been expecting you."

"Makes one of us." Sam grumbles, but steps through the doors. The air is no warmer in here, still heavy with the scent of rust and timefall. The doors slide shut behind him, looking with a click, and Sam shoots them a wary glance. The hanger is largely empty, vacant save for the few crates piled against the walls and an open doorway, glittering with the blue shine of an engaged forcefield. Sam wanders deeper, curious despite himself, only to freeze when BB suddenly snaps to attention, a sharp wash of alert flooding through the connection as the odradek springs to like, clicking and whirring, pointing directly into the lab.

_Shit._ Sam takes a half-step back, utterly silent, eyes fixed on the lab. If Mama's around- But no, she'd just talked to him, hadn't even sounded concerned. So how- Fuck, they better not be doing experiments with BTs-

"You don't need to worry." Mama says idly, wandering into view. She leans over, tapping at at the door-interface, and the forcefield falls away with a hiss. One arm is crooked against her chest, swaying slightly, something dark nestled there, and Sam sucks in a sharp breath when he spots the umbilical cord that rises from the BT, coiling lazily through the air before finding it's home at Mama's navel. "Baby's perfectly safe."

The odradek clicks once, twice, orange flashing growing more insistent as Mama steps closer, but she just smiles and gestures with her free hand, motioning him into the lab. Sam just stares, standing drawn and tight, every instinct screaming that something is terribly wrong with this picture, and the feeling of _discontent-fear-wrong_ radiating from BB only makes it worse.

Mama must see it in his face, because she sighs, leaning back against the frame of the door. Her arm never stops it's gentle motion, back and forth, back and forth, the BT nestled against her chest. "Don't worry." She says, her smile wry, exhausted. "You're not the first person to react this way. People get disconcerted by the sight. It's normal."

"Is it?" Sam asks, wrenching his eyes from the BT to look at her. "Normal?"

"It's normal for me." Mama says, her tone low, resigned. The BT stirrs, shifting against her chest and Mama hums beneath her breath, settling it back down. She wanders deeper into the lab, leaving the door open behind her, and after a second Sam follows her. He steps through the threshold hesitantly, but Mama doesn't stop humming. She glances his way, shooting him a grateful smile. "Thanks." She says, her voice hushed, careful not to wake the baby. "I know this is probably difficult for you."

"Difficult to believe, maybe." Sam says. The BT has been still since they arrived, inactive save for occasional stirring, but Sam doesn't take his eyes off it. The odradek is still clicking on his shoulder and Sam puts his hand on BB's pod. "I see it, kid. You can cool it with the scanner."

There's a visible moment of hesitation as the scanner opens and closes, uncertain, BB glancing up at him, but eventually it settles, its whirring slowing until it finally ceases motion with a final click. The lights stop flashing but doesn't turn off entirely, the scanner still trained on the BT with a pale light. Sam glances at it, but doesn't say anything. Sam's willing to trust Mama, to a point, but he wont rebuke BB his need to keep an eye on the BT. Neither of them have made it this far by being careless.

"Huh. So you talk to him." Mama notes, sending him a thoughtful glance. The rocking of her arm is starting to slower, fading away as the baby returns to sleep. She's brought up an interface with her other hand, flicking through screens of data - tangled peaks and readings paused motionless as she watches him.

Sam tenses, spine going ram-rod straight as he stares back at Mama. "Is that a problem?" He asks coldly.

"No." Mama says easily. "Most people will deny it, but if you look at the logs almost everyone who gets assigned a BB gets ends up talking to them. They can't help it - the BB's were people once, or they would have been...." She looks down at her baby, brushing her thumb across it's cheek softly, a gentle look one her face, before carefully holding it up. She gives a gentle push, releasing it, and it floats into the air, still curled and sleep, it's umbilical cord coiled loosely around it. Mama sighs, leaning back against the table, and turns to him.

"Dont worry. I wont tell anyone about it." She says. She glances up at her baby, it's form hazy and dark, growing more indistinct as it sleeps. Her smile is wry. "Bit hypocritical."

Sam wonders if that's what he looks like to other people, just another weirdo too attached to something that shouldn't exist. BTs and BBs are only one step removed - sitting side by side on the gradient between life and death. Neither truly dead, but neither truly alive either. He wonders what that says about him and Mama that they can get so attached to them. That they'd even want to.

If what Sam's heard is true, Mama's being working out of this lab for years. Living alone with an infant, her baby, her _BT_ , in the ruins of what was once a hospital. It tells a story in itself. There's a look in Mama's eyes, a bone-set weariness. She's watching him, resigned, and he knows she's waiting for him to ask. She'd answer. That's the worst part. She'd tell him everything, spill her very soul, never mind the blood and pain.

So Sam bites down on the questions burning a hole on the tip of his tongue and turns to look at the interface instead. "So." He says. "What do you need me to do?"

There's a moment when Mama just stares at him. Then her expression, carefully neutral, eases to something a little more natural, shoulders relaxing almost unnoticeably. When she looks towards the data it's with a smile, small but honest. "We started detecting a problem with the chiral network almost two months ago, a little after you connected Lake Knot. At first it was just small variations, but with every new connection you've made the fluctuations have been getting bigger. We think it's a software issue, compounded by the increased stress of so many new connections."

Mama pulls up another slide, then another, flipping quickly through the readouts before settling on a figure showing a mess of peaking lines. Now, Sam's not an engineer or a scientists or whatever, but even he can tell that the sudden spike in peaking lines doesn't look good.

"It's been harmless so far." Mama continues, taking offer her glasses with a sigh. She wipes the lenses on the hem of her shirt, then pops them back on, pushing them up when they threaten to slip. "Problem is the stabilization software. The chiral network interacts with the ambient chiralium, and the software's supposed to keep any fluctuations in check, keep it from having a significant effect on the chiralium. If the spikes keep increasing in severity, they may cause accumulations in the chiralium."

"You're not seriously telling me that the chiral network is going to increase the number of BTs." Sam says flatly, shooting the data a hard look before turning to Mama. Nothing about this seems even the vaguest bit sound to Sam, but this is BRIDGEs. Of course they went ahead with the chiral network anyway, fuck the consequences. "Who's fucking idea was that?"

"That's an extreme case, and only hypothetical at this point. Remember, we're talking about a malfunction here. The network has safeguards in place to avoid this. But..." Mama admits. "It's a possibility. At the very least the spikes will alter the chiralium's behavior. The study of chiralium is still in its infancy - our models are insufficient to predict what the effect will be."

"So it could do jack shit." Sam says bluntly. "Or it could rain BTs down on us all."

"Or potentially cause a voidout." Mama says grimly. "Maybe even another Death Stranding." She doesn't give Sam time to reply, already turning to tap at her desk. Probably for the best - Sam doesn't know what he'd say, but it'd be nothing good. A compartment hisses open, revealing a gleaming qupid. "I've made up a new qupid. I fixed the hardware problems, but its need a software patch. Problem is the designers is in Mountain Knot, and she wont talk to me."

"Who is she?"

"My sister." Mama says. "She'll probably refuse to see you, but... give her this letter. She'll let you in then. Probably."

She slides the letter across the table to him, and Sam takes it hesitantly. "I didn't know you had sister."

Mama shrugs, straightening some tools on her desk. "Most people don't. We ended up on separate convoys in the expedition three years ago. Lockne went on to Mountain Knot and I..." She trails off, straightening another tool carefully. There's a flash of something on her face, tight and pained, but then its gone, smoothed back to neutrality. She turns to him, lip quirked wryly. "Well. I was in hospital, waiting for the delivery day. As you can guess, things didn't work really out."

She leans back, settling against the desk, and looks up at her baby, still curled and silent near the ceiling. She smiles, but it's a bitter thing. "Now I can't leave - stuck right where the hospital came down on top of me. Lockne- Well. I don't think anyone every told her what happened. It didn't feel right sending her a letter afterwards."

"But you are now?" Sam asks. The letter threatens to crinkle in his grip, little more than a few sheets of delicate paper, and yet it holds an incredible weight. Mama's eyes linger on it, and there are a thousand words to describe the look in her eyes - weary, resigned, tired, bitter, hesitant.... hopeful. There's more than just the chiral network riding on this.

Mama shrugs. "I think its time I stopped hiding. Lockne will understand. I hope. I'm... tired. Of being alone."

Sam looks down at BB. Thinks about how alone he had been before be got him. He'd had nothing left and nothing to look forward to - just the job. Making deliveries just for something to do while he waited for death to catch up with him. He looks up and finds Mama watching him, the look in her eyes indescribable.

"Yeah." He says. "Alright. I'll take the letter, and the qupid."

"Good." Mama says, nodding towards the table where the qupid hovers suspended in its cradle, still connected by delicate silver wires. "I'd tell you to go by the Waystation and Mountain Knot Distribution but... With the network this unstable, it would be best to hold off on connecting any new points until you've got the update. The network should be fine, but I'm worried any new connections might destabilize it more."

"Sure." Sam says. He reaches for the qupid. It disconnects with a series of hisses, the cables falling away. It tugs upwards as he ties it around his neck, disks trying to escape, before he finally tucks it beneath his shirt and it settles there, knocking gently against his chest. "No connections. Got it, Mama."

"Målingen." She says. "Call me Målingen."

Sam pauses, staring at her. His first instinct is to raise his hackles, but- Maybe just this once he can allow himself to lower his guard. Just for a few minutes. "Alright... Målingen."


	9. Order No.41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a pretty graphic panic attack in the second half of this chapter prompted by someone touching Sam without his consent.

Sam spent most of his childhood in therapy. It's not something he cares to talk about, nor something he readily brings up, and given the chance he'd happily forget that entire chapter of his childhood.

He'd never been very social as a child, his touch sensitivity not lending itself well to groups or close interaction. Back then it hadn't yet developed into full blown aphenphosmphobia. It was a mild discomfort, manageable for the most part. Contact was uncomfortable, especially from strangers, the sensation of every touch lingering on his skin for hours - a side-effect of having such high DOOMs, he was told, as if having an explanation somehow made it any easier to bear.

Bridget spent a fortune putting him through counseling. Meetings three times a week with Capital Knots most discrete specialists to making sure he was coping with his DOOMS. When he thinks about it he can almost feel the cool breath of the air-con once more, whirring from the corner of the room. Bridget standing near the door, silent but always listening; the therapist staring over their clipboard at him, smiling blandly. The uncomfortable back of the chair digging into his spine and he leaned back and boredly answered the questions, counting down the minutes until he could leave.

It'd taken him a long time to realize that most kids didn't visit a specialist three times a week, and even longer to realize that those who did didn't spend their time answering questions about whether they felt socially alienated and if they the capacity to form significant connections with others and respond to displays of emotion.

It'd been the cause of his first major fight with Bridget and looking back, Sam wonders if he should have taken the whole thing as a hint.

_It's for your own good, Sam. DOOMs are a new and strange phenomena, and we're not quite sure how they impact people yet. I just want to make sure you're safe._ She'd said, always so calm, so reasonable, always with a logical explanation tucked up her sleeve - as if it was normal for someone to put their kid through psychological evaluations for the entirety of their formative years.

Sometimes Sam wonder's what would have happened if he'd left then, like he threatened to. Wonders how his life would have turned out if he hadn't let Bridget wrap her arms around him, pressing a kiss to his forehead, murmuring _It's alright Sam. I won't bring it up again._

Would he still have become a porter? He doesn't know. Sam tries to imagine himself doing something else, becoming an engineer maybe, or a farmer, settling down in some small settlement. Would he have met Lucy? Gotten married someone else? With Lucy, he'd almost seen himself living that life. The two of them had had a home, friends, neighbors. They'd had a kid on the way, with the hope of plenty more.

But Lucy's gone now, and whatever opportunity Sam had for that life has passed.

The first gentle flakes of snow drift downwards around him, slow and silent, and Sam sighs, his breath coming away in a white cloud. The air is colder here, thinner, but there's a crispness to it that Sam enjoys. The chill makes him stand straighter, breath a little deeper. BB makes a soft noise, blinking as a snowflake hits his pod and melts away, the tiny puff of white vanishing upon contact. Above them the mountains stretch tall and proud - dangerous and unforgiving, but all the more beautiful for it.

That's the thing about snowfall. It looks like so little, so silent and slow compared to the thundering of the timefall, and yet it's effect is just as potent. Light snow feels so insignificant, so insubstantial, and yet it's more dangerous than any drizzle, the beauty of it lulling you into a false sense of security.

Sam hoists his pack higher onto his shoulder, pulling his collar up until it brushed his chin as his hood clicks up, sensing the timefall. It's going to be a hard walk, and not one Sam can afford to dawdle on. Maybe he should be daunted. The mountains are unforgiving, the timefall even moreso. It will be a challenge, make no mistake, but all Sam feels is stubborn, fierce anticipation.

A package to deliver, the sheer beauty of the mountains around him, a warm ache in his muscles from the hard walking - this is what Sam lives for.

* * *

They sleep in a cave that night. The snow is knee deep outside, white and pristine save for the long winding path Sam gouged through the snow.

The snow is coming heavier that now, the light of the fire illuminating pale flashed in the darkness as it drifts down, already beginning to fill the tracks Sam had left. Above he can barely make out the crest of the next pass, the night so dark that the sky seems to swallow the world whole. And yet through the gloom he can make out the curve of the valley, the high slopes of the mountain cutting the world into clean, smooth planes of white.

BB's curled up in his pod, his eyes wide and curious, even as he curls into a cozy ball. Sam had been worried that he'd catch a chill coming up into the mountains, but BB's pod is designed to keep him at optimum temperatures. It's heating mechanisms had activated as the temperature dropped, raising the temperature of the fluid. It had overcompensated by a degree or two, leaving the pod pleasantly heated and BB warm and dozy. 

Sam raises his hands in front of the fire, rubbing them together to work some of the blood back into his numb fingers. He's aching and pleasantly exhausted, and the heat does wonders loosening some of the ache from his tired muscles. There'll be another day of this tomorrow, and another after that - Mountain Knot is deep in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and getting there is no mean feat. There'll be worse to deal with than snow on the way.

The wind picks up outside, whistling low though the valley and turning the snow into streaks of white that flit by the mouth of the cave. BB makes a noise, pressing his face up against the glass to watch.

"I wonder." Sam says, watching BB. "Have you ever seen snow before? Anyone ever carried you up into the mountains?"

BB looks up at the sound of his voice, but it doesn't hold his attention for long. He quickly turns back to watch the snow. The sight sparks a prickle of delight through the connection, curious and awed. Sam smiles.

"Yeah." He agrees. "It's beautiful, isn't it? Do you know how it's made?" There's no reply, but Sam continues anyway. It should be concerning how easily he's slipped into this habit of talking to BB, of filling the long hours with stories and explanations that BB probably doesn't understand a word of anyway, but he doesn't see the harm in it. It gives him an excuse to stretch his vocal chords, makes the time pass a little quicker. "Every snowflake is the product of a molecule of water freezing hundreds of feet in the air, particles coming together at random to form a little crystal. Each one is different, did you know? No two the same."

BB smiles at him and burbles, releasing a stream of bubbles that burst when they hit the top of his pod, and Sam sigh. "Guess it doesn't mean much to you, does it? Alright. Come on. Time to get some shut eye."

BB's pod is warm to the touch but Sam wraps it up in his jacket anyway, tucking BB close against his chest as he curls up against the hard stone at the back of the cave, his cargo piled up high beside him. The fire crackles, the synthetic firestarters burning low and white, but it'll be hours yet until they go out. In the meantime Sam sleeps. 

* * *

There's a worn track up the mountains, cutting through the peaks and following the wind of the valleys, and Sam sets his boots to it. The days pass with a sort of timelessness. This deep in the mountains everything looks the same. The snow coats everything, and whatever landmarks there once were have been worn away by the timefall, leaving little to distinguish the mountains but the jagged lines of their peaks.

Even with a map, it's easy to get lost in the mountains. The snow hides any trail and it's all too easy to end up walking up the wrong slope, only to meet a dead end at the top. Veer too far off course and you wont find your way back, and the mountains are cruel to anyone who loses their way. Too many die to the snowfall, and those who don't fall to cold and exhaustion. People don't realize how hard it is walking through snow, how quickly it tires you, how easy it is for the cold to seep into your limbs, eating away at you hour after hour.

Towns and villages were scarce in the mountains even back in the day, and now they're even rarer. The carcasses of those old settlements still dot the mountains, old ruins cutting dark shapes through the snow, interrupting the clean lines of the mountains. Approaching is a risk. Ruins mean shelter, mean a respite from the cold and a chance to rest. And yet more often than not the ruins are the homes of strandings - the lightest fluttering of snow enough to manifest the BTs that linger there.

On cloudy days when the snow doesn't stop, Sam can look up and trace the position of ruins from the cords in the sky. He wonders if the astronomers of old felt the same looking up at the stars and tracing the lines of their fate, reading their own deaths in the patterns of the sky. What would they have said now, staring up at the inverted rainbow? At the cords cutting dark across the heavens?

The wind picks up around him, sending snow rustling around his legs, and Sam sends a concerned look up at the horizon. The readings from the Weather Station foresaw no storms today, but the mountains are treacherous. The smallest breeze can turn to a blizzard all to easily, and Sam can't afford to get caught out in one of those, not with so much cargo weighing him down.

He'd hoped to cut across the rise today, cut around the worst of Sawtooth mountain, but perhaps it'd be best to stick to the valley instead, go the extra few miles and head through the pass. It'll be a few extra days, but it's better than getting caught out in the open if a blizzard starts up.

He keeps a wary eye on the skies as he tuns back down the valley. "Halfway there, BB." Sam says, giving the kid a fond look. "You're doing good."

* * *

It's almost a week later by the time he finally makes it across a pass, dropping down into a valley that will carry him most of the way to Mountain Knot. The mountains are steeper here, Mountain Knot right at the heart of the range, and the terrain is more difficult than every. The valleys are deep and winding, the peaks high and brutal, and most of the tracks and paths that once wound their way through have long since fallen to ruin.

Sam takes it slowly, one day at a time. He consults his maps every morning, scoping out the safest routes, and weighs the risk against the presence of old settlements and strandings. The deepest valleys sometimes hold the ruins of entire towns, black lines knotting the sky in the biggest of them, but the alternative is often scaling sheer rock, gambling on each step against a rockfall.

It's a surprise that he's still able to get comms access this deep in the mountains. Sure enough, the signal is fraught to hell, audio transmissions coming through garbled and staticy. Die-Hardman takes to sending emails, keeping Sam abreast of his new orders. Not that there really are any. He's at least another week from Mountain Knot, and it's not like he can take on any more deliveries until then.

Deadman sends him messages though. Loath as Sam is to admit it, the two them have what might tentatively be called a correspondence. Wherein Deadman sends Sam updates on his research into BB's origins and keeps him filled in at the newest developments at Capital Knot, and Sam reluctantly sends back one line replies.

No matter how curt Sam is, Deadman's replies are always the same - energetic and friendly, almost conversational, and Sam honestly can't tell if Deadman's so socially inept that he's not picking up on all Sam's hints, or whether he's just that desperate to have someone to talk to.

Sam doesn't understand it. Sam isn't friend material, nor does he want to be. There's a reason that he became a porter, subjecting himself to the most minimal amount of human contact. He doesn't have friends. He doesn't _want_ friends. He's anti-social, prickly and curt at best, and downright hostile the rest of the time, and yet for some reason Deadman is decided that the two of them are destined to be bosom pals. And Sam.... has no fucking clue what to make of it. So he ignores it. Replies with the minimum he can feasibly get away with, shooting down any attempt at personal conversation. Tries to tamp down the desperate urge to cut Deadman off entirely when his letters get too pressing, too personal.

He focuses on the other messages instead, reading through the newest briefs from Mama. She'd taken some blood samples before he left and has been working on isolating whatever factor's been causing it to effect the BTs. Thirty years people have been trying to find a way to kill BTs, and yet a few mls of Sam's blood in a shoddy grenade was enough to do the trick. Mama's messages are short, professional, and beautifully impersonal.

Seydoux's letters are even rarer. She doesn't contact him save to update him about her search for Higgs, occasionally passing on news the latest Separatist movements.

_We raided the base at Sumner. BRIDGEs managed to take a couple of the Separatists into custody, though two managed to kill themselves before we could stop them. Die-Hardman has people working on cracking their system's encryption now, but I doubt they'll have much luck._

_There was something else that we found. Something concerning. I've attached a photo. I was right that Higgs had taken an interest in you. The baits been set, and sooner or later he's going to come for you. Watch yourself, Porter, and let me know if you hear anything._

_Be careful._

Attached is a single photo. It takes almost a minute to load, grainy pixel slowly giving way to startling clarity - revealing a picture of a cluttered desk inside a darkened room. Above it, taped to the wall, is something that sends a cold shiver down his spine. It's a photo. Of him.

The photo itself is grainy, taken as he's in the middle of handing over a delivery. He's talking to someone out of the shot, his mouth set into a scowl, but it's a recent photo. The fading marks on his jaw and cheek attest to that, Higg's fingerprints still stark and white on his skin.

He can't remember it being taken, can't even begin to guess what delivery that was. The thought of someone taking photo's of him is disquieting, but Sam can't find it in himself to be truly surprised.

The Separatists are a cancer. For every person who openly take's up their name another three quietly support their ideas. There's too little hope these days, too much to despair at, and all too many people find it easier to just give up. Problem is, what the Separatists say makes sense, in a twisted, nihilistic way, and it's hard not to listen. There's a reason the suicide rates are always rising, why new voidouts occur across the board. The Separatists aren't just a group, they're a frame of mind, and one that's only growing more common. Higgs is just the face of a much deeper disease, one entrenched in the bones of society, wrapping it's dark threads into the heart of every settlement.

So no. Sam isn't surprised that Higgs has people in the Knots. Isn't surprised that he probably has people reporting on him whenever he comes in from a delivery

He's been on a collision course with Higgs since the moment BRIDGEs decided to contact Fragile Express. This only confirms what Sam already knows. Higgs will come for him eventually, and when he does Sam will be waiting.

_Thanks for the heads up._ Sam replies, then pauses, his finger hovering over the send button. On a whim he attaches a photo of his own, a snap he's taken that morning when crossing the pass. It's nothing fancy, just the mountains, dawn light washing over the ridge, casting lines of gold across plains of dark shadow.

He send the message, photo and all, before he has the chance to second guess himself. He's never send Seydoux any photo's before, nor she him, and he doesn't quite know what possessed him to send this one, but fuck it.

He dismisses the cuff interface with a flick of his fingers, leaning back against the rockwall. It's little more than an overhang, but it keep the worst of the wind off him, and the timefall too. Not enough shelter to light a fire, so Sam relies on his heating pads instead and sleeps lightly, keeping a grim eye on his battery levels. The clouds should clear up by early afternoon tomorrow, allowing his batteries to recover a little, but he cant afford to run his heating pads for too many nights in a row, not without risking running out of juice completely.

BB makes a low noise, his thoughts a warm flutter through the connection, and Sam leans back, letting his eyes fall closed. Another few days, then he'll be at the next pass. And beyond that: Mountain Knot.

* * *

"Make your delivery and leave." A cold voice says, crackling faintly through the comms system, even as the terminal rises from the ground. The hanger is empty, not a soul in sight. The doors hadn't closed after he'd entered and now the wind howls in, chilled and biting, the hanger offering no shelter from the cold. "We want nothing to do with BRIDGEs."

Sam nods gruffly and reaches around stiffly, slipping off his pack. The clips crack as he disengages them, cemented with a thick crust of ice. The air is bitterly cold as he drags off his gloves, pulling them off with his teeth, and the parcels even moreso, the containers rusted and spotted with ice, so cold it burns when it touches bare flesh. He hefts it onto the terminal with a grunt and steps back, already unclipping the next. The camera's track his every moment, red light blinking, but Sam doesn't look at it, focusing on the delivery.

The terminal whirs as it processes the deliveries, taking them away, and Sam pulls out one last parcel, a letter, slightly creased but untouched by the timefall. He puts it on the terminal. There's a long moment of silence, red light blinking at him from above the terminal. Sam can feel the camera's gaze like a physical weight bearing down on his shoulders, cold and hostile. 

"Whats that?" The voice asks, suspicion sharp and cutting. But there's a weight to it, a hesitation.

"A letter." Sam says, meeting the eye of the camera. "From your sister. She asked me to bring it to you."

"What- _Målingen?_ " There's a gasp and a sudden clatter, something being dropped. The connection crackles out and a second later the elevator whirls, coming up. The woman, Lockne, it must be, surges forward, jumping from the elevator before it has even finished rising. Her hair is wild around her face, her light garb too thin for the biting wind in the hanger, but there's a desperation in her face. She snatches up the letter, tearing it open.

"What happened? What did she-" She cuts herself off, eyes flicking across the page, skipping from line to line. She doesn't get more than halfway down the page before making a wounded noise, her face draining of all colour. She gasps, one hand rising to her mouth, tears beading in her eyes, the force of her grip folding crinkles in the paper. Sam doesn't say anything, standing silent, and looks away when her shock gives way to tears spilling down her cheeks, droplets painting dark circles on the paper.

"Is this true?" Lockne demands, her voice wretched. She flips to the next page, scanning it, then turns back just as quickly, reading the first page a second time, a third. Finally she looks up, meeting his eyes. Her hands shake, the letter trembling in her grasp. "Our- The baby? A BT?"

"Yeah." Sam says bluntly, because pretty words wont help here. Some times the kindest thing you can do is say it fast, brutal. Drawing it out only worsens the hurt.

Lockne makes a chocked noise, stumbling back a step, only to crumple to her knees. Sam takes a step forward instinctively, then stops. He can't- He stands there as she sobs, hands coming futility to wipe the tears from her eyes even as more spill over, the letter still clutched crumpled in her hand.

Sam's skin crawls at the very thought, but he takes a deep breath and steps forward anyway, laying a tentative hand on her forearm and slowly helping her to her feet. Tries to ignore the way his fingers tremble as he does it. She stumbles, her hand comes to rest on his arm in turn and he flinches, jerking back.

Lockne flinches in turn. She stares at him, startled and pale, tears still streaming down her face. "I-" She starts, choking on the words. Her hand is still raised, still reaching.

"Sor- Sorry." He gasps, stumbling another step back. There's a drum in his chest, pounding in his ears. _Get away get away get away-_ And Sam sucks in a tight breath. He can feel it clawing at his throat, the panic threatening to take it. His skin crawls, the slight brush of her fingers enough to make his entire arm burn, and it takes everything he has not to take another step back. His hand comes to rest on the place she touched. He can already feel the anxious prickling beneath where her fingerprints bleached into his skin, every point of contact marked and painful. He sucks in another breath, longer, slower. "Just- Don't like being touched."

For a second she stands there, hand still raised, her expression torn. Then she looks away, sucking in a long ragged breath as she takes a step back, one hand rising to wipe at the last lingering tears still cutting wet tracks down her face. _"God."_ She says, letting out a shuddering breath. "Just- _Fuck._ "

"Are you-" _okay?_ He can't bring himself to say it. Can bring himself to take a step closer to her, lest she reach out again. His heart is a knot in his chest, tight and aching, and his body is drawn tight with a painful tension, a strange mix of fear and dread sitting heavy in his belly. It's all he can do not to spiral into another panic attack.

He can't comfort her. Can barely look at her without flinching again, the brush of her fingers still burning a hold into his arm. Barely a second's contact, accidental, and it's enough to push him to verge of a fucking panic attack. Fucking _pathetic_. So he just stands there, struggling to keep his breathing even, and waits. Watches her pull herself together without saying a single word.

"You needed a software patch." She says turning towards him. Her eyes red, still wet with tears, but they blaze with a sudden intensity, her voice hard and desperate. "Something to fix the instability. If I can get you that, then you can connect Mountain Knot right? I need to- I need to call her. I-" Her voice wavers, breath hitching as her fractured composure shatters once more. "God, she's been there for so long. All alone in that _fucking hospital_ \- God, _Målingen_."

Lockne sucks in a harsh breath, her shoulders shaking, hands clenching at her sides. She looks up. meeting his eyes. There are tears in her eyes, suffering written in every line of her face, but her jaw is set and there's a new steel in her gaze. She holds out her hand, a silent demand, and Sam yanks off the qupid, tossing it to her.

She snatches it out of the air, holding the chain in her teeth as she reaches back to tie back her hair. The resemblance to Målingen is all the more astounding with her hair tied back. Sam would almost think he was looking at Mama - save for her eyes. There's an edge to her expression, a sharp intensity to it that looks out of place amongst Målingen's soft features. "Two days." She says, voice hard, meeting his eyes. "I'll have the patch done in two days. Don't go anywhere."

Sam jerks his head in a nod, and Lockne doesn't waste another second. She turns on her heel, prowling back to the elevator, qupid hanging from one hand and letter clutched in the other. He stares after her, hands still shaking, no small part of him wondering what the fuck exactly just happened.

He still standing there minutes later when one of Lockne's men comes to meet him, offering a nervous smile as he introduced himself. It's all Sam can do not to flinch at the sight of him. The man barely looks at him, but the proximity is enough to set skin crawling, burning with a phantom touch, a desperate panic clawing at the inside of his ribs. Sam barely hears his name, nodding numbly, and makes a bee-line for the room they're offering.

He can't remember if the guy says anything. Can't remember if he says anything back. Can barely think beyond the nausea rising in his throat, the breathlessness that threatens to steal the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping and broken and drowning for air. He's intimately aware of the noise the scanner makes as it verifies his ID, the seconds it takes for the door to slide open, the lights in the room flicking to life. The seconds stretch like taffy and he can still hear the man taking, saying something, voice like a buzzing in his ear, and then the door is closing behind him and Sam just-

Stops.

Gasps.

Sucks in a breath and gasps and drowns in the feeling of fingers on his arm, digging in deep, nails sinking into his flesh like claws- Can almost feel the hands on his ankles, dragging him down- The fingers in his hair, tight and painful and _pulling_ , and Higgs grinning, _C'mon Sam, they're waiting for you-_

His hands claw at his sleeve, dragging it up, as if that will help, as if it ever fucking helps. And God, he can almost feel the tar creeping up over his face. Can almost feel Lucy's hand in his, see the dark haze standing in their bedroom door, feel the cold drop in his stomach when he realizes just a second too late, splashes of tar spilling across the carpet as it reaches, as _Lucy_ reaches-

And fuck, he'd thought he was doing okay. It's been so long since his last attack, so long since someone touched him. Higgs had been bad, but he'd held on, he'd kept it under control. So why is it this small thing, just the tiniest brush of Lockne's fingers on his arm, that had been the thing to send him spiraling back down?

" _Fuck._ " Sam snarls. "Fuck fuck _fuck-_ " Because this is what he gets. Every time he think he's okay, something pulls the rug back out from under him. He'd forgotten how bad it was. How little it took to set him off. His skin burns with the touch, ice cold and blistering. If feels like someone's peeled back the skin, like they reached in and dragged their nails through his muscles, blood spilling over their fingers as they dig deeper, cutting through layers of epidermis and muscle until their nails brush white bone. He aches with it, bone deep and fucking _brutal_. He can feel it in every cell, every fucking follicle, could map every touch with his eyes closed, trace the bleached patterns burned into his skin like a blind main reads braille. 

There's a noise in his ears, high and wailing, and it takes Sam a long moment to realize its BB. He curses, choking on apologies even as his fingers scrabble at the port, scrambling to disconnect them. Fuck, he should have known BB would feel it- Should have disconnected him earlier instead of dragging him down with him. BB only wails louder as the connection vanishes, and Sam sucks in another hard breath.

"BB, fuck, I'm sorry-" Sam chokes, and God- He can't do this. He can barely hold himself together. He's a fractured mess, falling apart a little more with every mission. BB deserves better. Deserves someone who won't fall to pieces everytime someone so much as touches him, who doesn't jerk awake every night biting back a scream. " _God._ I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, BB-"

He curls over the pod, shudders wracking his body, and tries to pull himself back together. He shakes, choked sobs slowly giving way to hitched pants. Sam drags in another ragged breath, his entire body shuddering with the force of it, aching and just so fucking exhausted. Slowly he drags his head up, face tight and warm where tears have dried on his cheeks-

and stops.

Because BB is looking at him. He's pressed up against the glass, tiny hands splayed against the wall of his pod, eyes wide and concerned. He's pressed as close to Sam as he can get and still reaching, pressing at the glass like he can reach through and touch him. As if he can reach out and comfort him, concern written in every line of his tiny, fragile body. Sam doesn't know how he does it. How he can look so concerned. Like he's worried. Like he _cares_.

"I-" Sam starts, his voice hoarse and sore. But what does he even say? What can he possibly say to explain this? He swallows thickly, tries again, one hand coming up to cup the pod, tracing the tiny lines of BB's hand with his thumb. BB presses back into the touch immediately, with such force that it makes the pod physically press forward, and Sam can't help it - he laughs. It's a hitched, broken thing, little more than a rough exhale, and before he knows it he's pulling the pod closer, wrapping his arms around it and tucking it close to his chest, until he can feel the heat of it through his suit, the thud of BB's heartbeat pressing alongside his own.

"I'm okay, kid." Sam murmurs, holding him tight. He's not okay, not really, not yet. The world is ending, it's fractured remains shattering a little more with every year that passes, and Sam is no better. He's broken and brittle, held together by a thread, and sometimes it feels like he might lose himself entirely. 

BB's eyes are still fixed on his face, one hand pressed against the apex of his pod as if he can touch Sam's face if he just tries hard enough. Stubborn kid. "We're going to be okay." Sam whispers, as if repetition will somehow make it true, as if it saying it can somehow fix things. He wonders what sort of fool it takes to do the same thing again and again, every time hoping for a different result. No matter how much he tries it always ends the same way. He scrapes himself back together, marches on again, trailing pieces in his wake. Wind him up and watch him go. Count the seconds until he breaks again. 

He wonders how many times he can do this, how many more times he can break before there's too little left of him to put back together. He's scared of finding out.

BB makes a low noise, curling himself up into a ball, still nestled against Sam's chest. "We'll be okay." He murmurs again, a little white lie just for the two of them. He lets his head fall back against the door, staring up at the seamless metal of the ceiling, and draws in a breath. Slow. Deep. He looks down at BB, this tiny life that's entrusted itself to his care, so fragile and yet still so strong, so fucking _kind_. 

He wonders how long it will take for him to lose him too. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress, and I do have a bit of a habit of going back and changing things in posted chapters sometimes when I feel its necessary, so don't be surprised if you re-read and find some scenes aren't exactly the same. That being said, it's not usually anything too major, just tweaking to get more consistency and shit. 
> 
> My apologies for any inconvenience.


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